What does Putin want? A major analysis by Rostislav Ishchenko (must read!)

The analysis below is, by far, the best I have seen since the beginning of the conflict in the Ukraine. I have regularly posted analyses by Ishchenko on this blog before, because I considered him as one of the best analysts in Russia. This time, however, Ishchenko has truly produced a masterpiece: a comprehensive analysis of the geostrategic position of Russia and a clear and, I believe, absolutely accurate analysis of the entire “Putin strategy” for the Ukraine. I have always said that this conflict is not about the Ukraine but about the future of the planet and that there is no “Novorussian” or even “Ukrainian” solution, but that the only possible outcome is a strategic victory of either Russia or the USA which will affect the entire planet. Ishchenko does a superb overview of the risks and options for both sides and offers the first comprehensive “key” to the apparently incomprehensible behavior of Russia in this conflict. Finally, Ishchenko also fully understands the complex and subtle dynamics inside Russian society. When he writes “Russian power is authoritative, rather than authoritarian” he is spot on, and explains more in seven words than what you would get by reading the billions of useless words written by so-called “experts” trying to describe the Russian reality.

We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Denis, Gideon and Robin for translating this seminal text, which was very difficult to translate. The only reason why we can read it in such a good English is because the innumerable hours spent by these volunteers to produce the high quality translation this analysis deserves.

I strongly recommend that you all read this text very carefully. Twice. It is well worth it.

It’s gratifying that “patriots” did not instantly blame Putin for the failure to achieve a full-scale rout of Ukrainian troops in Donbass in January and February, or for Moscow’s consultations with Merkel and Hollande.

Even so, they are still impatient for a victory. The most radical are convinced that Putin will “surrender Novorossiya” just the same. And the moderates are afraid that he will as soon as the next truce is signed (if that happens) out of the need to regroup and replenish Novorossiya’s army (which actually could have been done without disengagement from military operations), to come to terms with the new circumstances on the international front, and to get ready for new diplomatic battles.

In fact, despite all the attention that political and/or military dilettantes (the Talleyrands and the Bonapartes of the Internet) are paying to the situation in Donbass and the Ukraine in general, it is only one point on a global front: the outcome of the war is being decided not at the Donetsk airport or in the hills outside Debaltsevo, but at offices on Staraya Square1 and Smolenskaya Square,2 at offices in Paris, Brussels and Berlin. Because military action is only one of the many components of the political quarrel.

It is the harshest and the final component, which carries great risk, but the matter doesn’t start with war and it doesn’t end with war. War is only an intermediate step signifying the impossibility of compromise. Its purpose is to create new conditions whereby compromise is possible or to show that there is no longer any need for it, with the disappearance of one side of the conflict. When it is time for compromise, when the fighting is over and the troops go back to their barracks and the generals begin writing their memoirs and preparing for the next war, that is when the real outcome of the confrontation is determined by politicians and diplomats at the negotiating table.

Political decisions are not often understood by the general population or the military. For example, during the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, Prussian chancellor Otto Von Bismarck (later chancellor of the German Empire) disregarded the persistent requests of King Wilhelm I (the future German Emperor) and the demands of the Prussian generals to take Vienna, and he was absolutely correct to do so. In that way he accelerated peace on Prussia’s terms and also ensured that Austro-Hungary forever (well, until its dismemberment in 1918) became a junior partner for Prussia and later the German Empire.

To understand how, when and on what conditions military activity can end, we need to know what the politicians want and how they see the conditions of the postwar compromise. Then it will become clear why military action turned into a low-intensity civil war with occasional truces, not only in the Ukraine but also in Syria.

Obviously, the views of Kiev politicians are of no interest to us because they don’t decide anything. The fact that outsiders govern the Ukraine is no longer concealed. It doesn’t matter whether the cabinet ministers are Estonian or Georgian; they are Americans just the same. It would also be a big mistake to take an interest in how the leaders of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Lugansk People’s Republic (LNR) see the future. The republics exist only with Russian support, and as long as Russia supports them, Russia’s interests have to be protected, even from independent decisions and initiatives. There is too much at stake to allow [Alexander] Zakharchenko or [Igor] Plotnitzky, or anyone else for that matter, to make independent decisions.

Nor are we interested in the European Union’s position. Much depended on the EU until the summer of last year, when the war could have been prevented or stopped at the outset. A tough, principled antiwar stance by the EU was needed. It could have blocked U.S. initiatives to start the war and would have turned the EU into a significant independent geopolitical player. The EU passed on that opportunity and instead behaved like a faithful vassal of the United States.

As a result, Europe stands on the brink of frightful internal upheaval. In the coming years, it has every chance of suffering the same fate as the Ukraine, only with a great roar, great bloodshed and less chance that in the near future things will settle down – in other words, that someone will show up and put things in order.

In fact, today the EU can choose whether to remain a tool of the United States or to move closer to Russia. Depending on its choice, Europe can get off with a slight scare, such as a breakup of parts of its periphery and possible fragmentation of some countries, or it could collapse completely. Judging by the European elites’ reluctance to break openly with the United States, collapse is almost inevitable.

What should interest us is the opinions of the two main players that determine the configuration of the geopolitical front and in fact are fighting for victory in the new generation of war – the network-centric Third World War. These players are the United States and Russia.

The U.S. position is clear and transparent. In the second half of the 1990s, Washington missed its only opportunity to reform the Cold War economy without any obstacles and thereby avoid the looming crisis in a system whose development is limited by the finite nature of planet Earth and its resources, including human ones, which conflicts with the need to endlessly print dollars.

After that, the United States could prolong the death throes of the system only by plundering the rest of the world. At first, it went after Third World countries. Then it went for potential competitors. Then for allies and even close friends. Such plundering could continue only as long as the United States remained the world’s undisputed hegemon.

Thus when Russia asserted its right to make independent political decisions – decisions of not global but regional import – , a clash with the United States became inevitable. This clash cannot end in a compromise peace.

For the United States, a compromise with Russia would mean a voluntary renunciation of its hegemony, leading to a quick, systemic catastrophe – not only a political and economic crisis but also a paralysis of state institutions and the inability of the government to function. In other words, its inevitable disintegration.

But if the United States wins, then it is Russia that will experience systemic catastrophe. After a certain type of “rebellion,” Russia’s ruling classes would be punished with asset liquidation and confiscation as well as imprisonment. The state would be fragmented, substantial territories would be annexed, and the country’s military might would be destroyed.

So the war will last until one side wins. Any interim agreement should be viewed only as a temporary truce – a needed respite to regroup, to mobilize new resources and to find (i.e., to poach) additional allies.

To complete the picture of the situation, we only need Russia’s position. It is essential to understand what the Russian leadership wants to achieve, particularly the president, Vladimir Putin. We are talking about the key role that Putin plays in the organization of the Russian power structure. This system is not authoritarian, as many assert, but rather authoritative – meaning it is based not on legislative consolidation of autocracy but on the authority of the person who created the system and, as the head of it, makes it work effectively.

During Putin’s 15 years in power, despite the difficult internal and external situation, he has tried to maximize the role of the government, the legislative assembly, and even the local authorities. These are entirely logical steps that should have given the system completeness, stability, and continuity. Because no politician can rule forever, political continuity, regardless of who comes to power, is the key to a stable system.

Unfortunately, fully autonomous control, namely the ability to function without the president’s oversight, hasn’t been achieved. Putin remains the key component of the system because the people put their trust in him personally. They have far less trust in the system, as represented by public authorities and individual agencies.

Thus Putin’s opinions and political plans become the decisive factor in areas such as Russia’s foreign policy. If the phrase “without Putin, there is no Russia” is an exaggeration, then the phrase “what Putin wants, Russia also wants” reflects the situation quite accurately in my opinion.

First, let’s note that the man who for 15 years has carefully guided Russia to its revival has done so in conditions of U.S. hegemony in world politics along with significant opportunities for Washington to influence Russia’s internal politics. He had to understand the nature of the fight and his opponent. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have lasted so long.

The level of confrontation that Russia allowed itself to get into with the United States grew very slowly and up to a certain point went unnoticed. For example, Russia did not react at all to the first attempt at a color revolution in the Ukraine in 2000-2002 (the Gongadze case,3 the Cassette Scandal,4 and the Ukraine without Kuchma protest5).

Russia took an opposing position but did not actively intervene in the coups that took place from November 2003 to January 2004 in Georgia and from November 2004 to January 2005 in the Ukraine. In 2008, in Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russia used its troops against Georgia, a U.S. ally. In 2012, in Syria, the Russian fleet demonstrated its readiness to confront the United States and its NATO allies.

In 2013, Russia began taking economic measures against [Victor] Yanukovych’s regime, which contributed to his realization of the harmfulness of signing an association agreement [with the EU].

Moscow could not have saved the Ukraine from the coup because of the baseness, cowardice, and stupidity of the Ukraine’s leaders – not only Yanukovych but all of them without exception. After the armed coup in Kiev in February 2014, Russia entered into open confrontation with Washington. Before that, the conflicts were interspersed with improved relations, but at the beginning of 2014 relations between Russia and the United States deteriorated swiftly and almost immediately reached the point where war would have been declared automatically in the prenuclear era.

Thus at any given time Putin engaged in precisely the level of confrontation with the United States that Russia could handle. If Russia isn’t limiting the level of confrontation now, it means Putin believes that, in the war of sanctions, the war of nerves, the information war, the civil war in the Ukraine, and the economic war, Russia can win.

This is the first important conclusion about what Putin wants and what he expects. He expects to win. And considering that he takes a meticulous approach and strives to anticipate any surprises, you can be sure that when the decision was made not to back down under pressure from the United States, but to respond, the Russian leadership had a double, if not a triple, guarantee of victory.

I would like to point out that the decision to enter into a conflict with Washington was not made in 2014, nor was it made in 2013. The war of August 8, 2008, was a challenge that the United States could not leave unpunished. After that, every further stage of the confrontation only raised the stakes. From 2008 to 2010, the United States’ capability – not just military or economic but its overall capability – has declined, whereas Russia’s has improved significantly. So the main objective was to raise the stakes slowly rather than in explosive fashion. In other words, an open confrontation in which all pretences are dropped and everyone understands that a war is going on had to be delayed as long as possible. But it would have been even better to avoid it altogether.

With every passing year, the United States became weaker while Russia became stronger. This process was natural and impossible to arrest, and we could have projected with a high degree of certainty that by 2020 to 2025, without any confrontation, the period of U.S. hegemony would have ended, and the United States would then be best advised to think about not how to rule the world, but how to stave off its own precipitous internal decline.

Thus Putin’s second desire is clear: to keep the peace or the appearance of peace as long as possible. Peace is advantageous for Russia because in conditions of peace, without enormous expense, it obtains the same political result but in a much better geopolitical situation. That is why Russia continually extends the olive branch. Just as the Kiev junta will collapse in conditions of peace in Donbass, in conditions of world peace, the military-industrial complex and the global financial system created by the United States are doomed to self-destruct. In this way, Russia’s actions are aptly described by Sun Tzu’s maxim “The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”

It is clear that Washington is not run by idiots, no matter what is said on Russian talk shows or written on blogs. The United States understands precisely the situation it is in. Moreover, they also understand that Russia has no plans to destroy them and is really prepared to cooperate as an equal. Even so, because of the political and socioeconomic situation in the United States, such cooperation is not acceptable to them. An economic collapse and a social explosion are likely to occur before Washington (even with the support of Moscow and Beijing) has time to introduce the necessary reforms, especially when we consider that the EU will have to undergo reform at the same time. Moreover, the political elite who have emerged in the United States in the past 25 years have become accustomed to their status as the owners of the world. They sincerely don’t understand how anyone can challenge them.

For the ruling elite in the United States (not so much the business class but the government bureaucracy), to go from being a country that decides of the fate of inferior peoples to one that negotiates with them on an equal footing is intolerable. It is probably tantamount to offering Gladstone or Disraeli the post of prime minister of the Zulu Kingdom under Cetshwayo kaMpande. And so, unlike Russia, which needs peace to develop, the United States regards war as vital.

In principle, any war is a struggle for resources. Typically, the winner is the one that has more resources and can ultimately mobilize more troops and build more tanks, ships, and planes. Even so, sometimes those who are strategically disadvantaged can turn the situation around with a tactical victory on the battlefield. Examples include the wars of Alexander the Great and Frederick the Great, as well as Hitler’s campaign of 1939-1940.

Nuclear powers cannot confront each other directly. Therefore, their resource base is of paramount importance. That is exactly why Russia and the United States have been in a desperate competition for allies over the past year. Russia has won this competition. The United States can count only the EU, Canada, Australia, and Japan as allies (and not always unconditionally so), but Russia has managed to mobilize support from the BRICS, to gain a firm foothold in Latin America, and to begin displacing the United States in Asia and North Africa.

Of course, it’s not patently obvious, but if we consider the results of votes at the UN, assuming that a lack of official support for the United States means dissent and thus support for Russia, it turns out that the countries aligned with Russia together control about 60% of the world’s GDP, have more than two-thirds of its population, and cover more than three-quarters of its surface. Thus Russia has been able to mobilize more resources.

In this regard, the United States had two tactical options. The first seemed to have great potential and was employed by it from the early days of the Ukrainian crisis.

It was an attempt to force Russia to choose between a bad situation and an even worse one. Russia would be compelled to accept a Nazi state on its borders and therefore a dramatic loss of international authority and of the trust and support of its allies, and after a short time would become vulnerable to internal and external pro-U.S. forces, with no chance of survival. Or else it could send its army into the Ukraine, sweep out the junta before it got organized, and restore the legitimate government of Yanukovych. That, however, would have brought an accusation of aggression against an independent state and of suppression of the people’s revolution. Such a situation would have resulted in a high degree of disapproval on the part of Ukrainians and the need to constantly expend significant military, political, economic, and diplomatic resources to maintain a puppet regime in Kiev, because no other government would have been possible under such conditions.

Russia avoided that dilemma. There was no direct invasion. It is Donbass that is fighting Kiev. It is the Americans who have to devote scarce resources to the doomed puppet regime in Kiev, while Russia can remain on the sidelines making peace proposals.

So now the United States is employing the second option. It’s as old as the hills. That which cannot be held, and will be taken by the enemy, must be damaged as much as possible so that the enemy’s victory is more costly than defeat, as all its resources are used to reconstruct the destroyed territory. The United States has therefore ceased to assist the Ukraine with anything more than political rhetoric while encouraging Kiev to spread civil war throughout the country.

The Ukrainian land must burn, not only in Donetsk and Lugansk but also in Kiev and Lvov. The task is simple: to destroy the social infrastructure as much as possible and to leave the population at the very edge of survival. Then the population of the Ukraine will consist of millions of starving, desperate and heavily armed people who will kill one another for food. The only way to stop this bloodbath would be massive international military intervention in the Ukraine (the militia on its own will not be sufficient) and massive injections of funds to feed the population and to reconstruct the economy until the Ukraine can begin to feed itself.

It is clear that all these costs would fall on Russia. Putin correctly believes that not only the budget, but also public resources in general, including the military, would in this case be overstretched and possibly insufficient. Therefore, the objective is not to allow the Ukraine to explode before the militia can bring the situation under control. It is crucial to minimize casualties and destruction and to salvage as much of the economy as possible and the infrastructure of the large cities so that the population somehow survives and then the Ukrainians themselves will take care of the Nazi thugs.

At this point an ally appears for Putin in the form of the EU. Because the United States always tried to use European resources in its struggle with Russia, the EU, which was already weakened, reaches the point of exhaustion and has to deal with its own long-festering problems.

If Europe now has on its eastern border a completely destroyed Ukraine, from which millions of armed people will flee not only to Russia but also to the EU, taking with them delightful pastimes such as drug trafficking, gunrunning, and terrorism, the EU will not survive. The people’s republics of Novorossiya will serve as a buffer for Russia, however.

Europe cannot confront the United States, but it is deathly afraid of a destroyed Ukraine. Therefore, for the first time in the conflict, Hollande and Merkel are not just trying to sabotage the U.S. demands (by imposing sanctions but not going too far), but they are also undertaking limited independent action with the aim of achieving a compromise – maybe not peace but at least a truce in the Ukraine.

If the Ukraine catches fire, it will burn quickly, and if the EU has become an unreliable partner that is ready if not to move into Russia’s camp then at least to take a neutral position, Washington, faithful to its strategy, would be obliged to set fire to Europe.

It is clear that a series of civil and interstate wars on a continent packed with all sorts of weapons, where more than half a billion people live, is far worse than a civil war in the Ukraine. The Atlantic separates the United States from Europe. Even Britain could hope to sit it out across the Channel. But Russia and the EU share a very long [sic] border.

It is not at all in Russia’s interests to have a conflagration stretching from the Atlantic to the Carpathian Mountains when the territory from the Carpathians to the Dnieper is still smoldering. Therefore, Putin’s other objective is, to the extent possible, to prevent the most negative effects of a conflagration in the Ukraine and a conflagration in Europe. Because it is impossible to completely prevent such an outcome (if the United States wants to ignite the fire, it will), it is necessary to be able to extinguish it quickly to save what is most valuable.

Thus, to protect Russia’s legitimate interests, Putin considers peace to be of vital importance, because it is peace that will make it possible to achieve this goal with maximum effect at minimum cost. But because peace is no longer possible, and the truces are becoming more theoretical and fragile, Putin needs the war to end as quickly as possible.

But I do want to stress that if a compromise could have been reached a year ago on the most favorable terms for the West (Russia would have still obtained its goals, but later – a minor concession), it is no longer possible, and the conditions are progressively worsening. Ostensibly, the situation remains the same; peace on almost any conditions is still beneficial for Russia. Only one thing has changed, but it is of the utmost importance: public opinion. Russian society longs for victory and retribution. As I pointed out above, Russian power is authoritative, rather than authoritarian; therefore, public opinion matters in Russia, in contrast to the “traditional democracies.”

Putin can maintain his role as the linchpin of the system only as long as he has the support of the majority of the population. If he loses this support, because no figures of his stature have emerged from Russia’s political elite, the system will lose its stability. But power can maintain its authority only as long as it successfully embodies the wishes of the masses. Thus the defeat of Nazism in the Ukraine, even if it is diplomatic, must be clear and indisputable – only under such conditions is a Russian compromise possible.

Thus, regardless of Putin’s wishes and Russia’s interests, given the overall balance of power, as well as the protagonists’ priorities and capabilities, a war that should have ended last year within the borders of the Ukraine will almost certainly spill over into Europe. One can only guess who will be more effective – the Americans with their gas can or the Russians with their fire extinguisher? But one thing is absolutely clear: the peace initiatives of the Russian leaders will be limited not by their wishes but their actual capabilities. It is futile to fight either the wishes of the people or the course of history; but when they coincide, the only thing a wise politician can do is to understand the wishes of the people and the direction of the historical process and try to support it at all costs.

The circumstances described above make it extremely unlikely that the proponents of an independent state of Novorossiya will see their wishes fulfilled. Given the scale of the coming conflagration, determining the fate of the Ukraine as a whole is not excessively complicated but, at the same time, it will not come cheap.

It is only logical that the Russian people should ask: if Russians, whom we rescued from the Nazis, live in Novorossiya, why do they have to live in a separate state? If they want to live in a separate state, why should Russia rebuild their cities and factories? To these questions there is only one reasonable answer: Novorossiya should become part of Russia (especially since it has enough fighters, although the governing class is problematic). Well, if part of the Ukraine can join Russia, why not all of it? Especially as in all likelihood by the time this question is on the agenda, the European Union will no longer be an alternative to the Eurasian Union [for the Ukraine].

Consequently, the decision to rejoin Russia will be made by a united federated Ukraine and not by some entity without a clear status. I think that it is premature to redraw the political map. Most likely the conflict in the Ukraine will be concluded by the end of the year. But if the United States manages to extend the conflict to the EU (and it will try), the final resolution of territorial issues will take at least a couple of years and maybe more.

In any situation we benefit from peace. In conditions of peace, as Russia’s resource base grows, as new allies (former partners of the United States) go over to its side, and as Washington becomes progressively marginalized, territorial restructuring will become far simpler and temporarily less significant, especially for those being restructured.

Notes:

1 Moscow street where the headquarters of the Presidential Administration of Russia is located.

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More justthetalk toss. The subliminal message of that sort of zio-spam is to cease opposing because it’s futile – they are all corrupt. The sought result is the zionazi status quo will remain unchanged.

Says a spambot who posts nonsense 24/7, ranting about some jewish conspiracies… heavens.

My statement above was very literal and to the point. But I’m sure you do know a better place to live – please enlighten us, dear bot. Maybe we should move to Zimbabwe? Oh wait, I forgot – you’re a fan of theocracy I believe. So it must be Iran, Vatican of Wahhabistan I guess.

As you already know, yes. Both east and west, both in fake socialism and fake capitalism. And what I see in everyday life in the west in recent decades is the same development I saw in the communist east a few decades ago. Same development towards faulty socialism (actually fascism) of the soviet kind.

Obviously, almost all countries are ruled by the same cabal today and thus I say there is no point in running away since there’s really no place to go, bare such friendly places like Siberia or some distant desert. And I sincerely doubt our swede above would be happy there.

I fear you believe in either a non-existent god (or a god who is a liar) and a counterweight (Russia) that is probably not a counterweight and, even if it is it, is just as corrupt as the empire that you so despise.

If your first paragraph hadn’t been based on your own imagination, I would have asked what are the reasons for your last sentence. But as it is, I won’t, because I’m afraid they come from the same source.

Not so plenty of open space unless you are wealthy enough to purchase some good chunk of land, Uncle Bob 1 (I am Argentinean and live in Argentina). And if you have such an amount of money, then you will most probably integrate with our ruling oligarchy (a Quisling class interested only in selling the country out to foreign masters). If you do so, then you would clash with our own “authoritative” governments and radiation may not kill you but you will drag along a sad path of spite against our masses and their friends outside. Now, if you do not want that much open space, then yes, we are most friendly with those who come here to work together with us against our ruling classes, centered around the kind of landowner you dream of becoming.

2 Paragraphs cause me some headache, so I would invite Saker and the Community to help me understand, if possible.

“For the United States, a compromise with Russia would mean a voluntary renunciation of its hegemony, leading to a quick, systemic catastrophe – not only a political and economic crisis but also a paralysis of state institutions and the inability of the government to function. In other words, its inevitable disintegration.”

I really have to wonder about this statement! Is it an assumption? A fact? Based on which evidence or insight?
The statement implies a static predetermination which the USA can’t escape. Why must it be this way. If you consider, that the USA as a nation is also high jacked by Agents of the “British Financial Empire” and that there are also real patriots in the American establishment like Lyndon Larouche, who vehemently pledge for an cooperation between the USA & BRICS to counter together the Evil Empire, then I would say: don’t give up the hope!

I mean, what is easier: to have a full confrontation with the USA, maybe even nuclear? Or to stay sane and try to work with the sane part of the American establishment. Just an idea…

“An economic collapse and a social explosion are likely to occur before Washington (even with the support of Moscow and Beijing) has time to introduce the necessary reforms, especially when we consider that the EU will have to undergo reform at the same time.”

That one is also very pessimistic. Maybe it is so. I don’t know. I don’t have the data. If Ishchenko has the data, I would like to study it, to understand better. Can you help me here?

Overall, there is a fatalistic undertone to the whole Analysys, which could be on spot, but it mustn’t. Like we say in Germany: prepare for the worst but hope for the best.

One thing also wondered me: Ishchenko describes the Russian political system and structure as wholly dependant on the persona Putin, because the people trust Putin, but not or not yet the system. I would agree with this. But then I ask: do the “USA” see it the same way? You can bet. But this would mean, that you can “solve” the whole problem for the USA by “removing” Putin from Power. Then I ask you all: why is Putin still living? Is it impossible for them to exercise this?

I thought the author was pretty clear in his analysis. The US economy basically relies on it’s hegemon status. It milks resources from it’s aggressiveness through the only real functioning parts of it’s economy, that is, it’s banking system, and it’s military industrial complex. It’s banking system had exported the economic crisis world wide in 2008. And it’s military complex provides the weaponry for the conflicts it starts. If peace were to break out, what’s left of it’s economy disintegrates.
The austerity in Europe is a direct result of the US and UK central banks, should Russia and China succeed in their attempts to break the stranglehold of the western banking system, again, the US crumbles.
As to the position of Putin. Don’t kid yourself. If the US could find a way to get rid of him, without taking the blame, they would. The difference between Putin’s Russia and the western “democracies” is that Putin is in charge, Putin makes the decisions. Whereas, in western “democracies” the leader is just a figurehead, and you never get to see who is really pulling the strings. Putin’s interests are Russia’s interests. Western interests are controlled by the banking and industrial elites who have global interests and in reality couldn’t care less about the interests of the societies to which they belong.

I agree with this analysis, but also have problems with much of this article. It sounds too good to be true. The only hopeful fact is that Holllande and Merkel – as well as the other European leaders – appear to be reaching the point where they are ready to ditch the US. Regarding destruction of Ukraine, today’s news is that Kiev is shutting down its coal mines, though the reason is unclear.

The following sentence is not clear: is the author suggesting that Putin made a decision to enter into conflict with the US, which appears to be conradicted by the second sentence…….?

“I would like to point out that the decision to enter into a conflict with Washington was not made in 2014, nor was it made in 2013. The war of August 8, 2008, was a challenge that the United States could not leave unpunished.”

“It milks resources from it’s aggressiveness through the only real functioning parts of it’s economy, that is, it’s banking system, and it’s military industrial complex.”

Yes, I agree and I understand that this is the status quo. But this status quo isn’t unchangeable! It was forced upon Amerika and the world by decisions. Decisions can be reverted. New decisions could be made. I simply refuse a deterministic, fatalistic and mechanic outlook on the events.

Like I said: look what Larouche and the circles associated with him are promoting. When I hear Glazyev talking about a “national bank” and “long term credit”, I hear Larouche talking. These concepts weren’t invented by Larouche but by the founding fathers of the USA. Amerika become a great nation first of all because of these economic and financial concepts, not through wars and predatory banking.

I really urge you to understand this! It’s foolish to simply flip sides: today America is the Empire with this and that policy… Russia & China are the good ones, because of this and that policy. Yes, OK. But only 239 years ago the British were the Empire with the same concepts like USA today and the USA was the emerging great Republic with the concepts which are today promoted by Glazyev for Russia.

When you went through this Article and understand the distinction of the aim of the group called the “Aristotelians” in contrast to the aims of the group called the “Platonics” and ask yourself: shit, when has this begun? I would suggest you to read the Sumerian story of “Enki & Enlil”.

First of all: I’m no „fan“ of anybody. So I’m no fan of Larouche either. But he has a lot of great stuff published since the 70’s already and you can learn a lot from him.

What Glazyev is now proposing for Russia, it’s old talk from Larouche.

What you are saying about Hamilton, that he’s an agent of Rothschild, is completely new to me. As far as I can understand the relevant resources, Hamilton and the associated circles where opposed to any privat central bank.

You may get the answer to the question: “What will be the trigger for the collapse of U.S. hegemony?”

That said. There are a number of technological advances taking place in he background, that are yet to reach mainstream, and their full commercial development is perhaps as little away as the end of the decade, which will like the PC in 1981 ressurrect the US economy.

But, oil which during the 20th century was the dominant energy source, and thus the source of much conflict, will likely be less important economically/politically, and thus a new more widespread multi-polar world is possible.

South Africa may emerge as a major industrial centre, as that part of the world holds something like 75% of the world’s platinum resources, and is the raw material for Fuel-Cell technology, providing cheap base power possible, without the implications of mass annihilation due to technology failures, rogue nations, psychotic leaders, or demonic hegemons.

Solar Power too holds promise for electricity generation across the sahara, provided those nations can develop socially to allow for multi-polar/secular opinions to flourish.(Improbable I agree, but perhaps like Europe post 2 WWs, willing to adjust)

Putins’ Russia, and Xi Jinping’s China are collaborating to turn this uni-polar world into a multi-polar one.

The author says:
“The United States can count only the EU, Canada, Australia, and Japan as allies (and not always unconditionally so), but Russia has managed to mobilize support from the BRICS, to gain a firm foothold in Latin America, and to begin displacing the United States in Asia and North Africa.”

Now that almost all US allies have joined the AIIB — especially Saudi Arabia, which had been propping up the petrodollar, it is clear that the US has almost no allies and will collapse.

“It is crucial to minimize casualties and destruction and to salvage as much of the economy as possible and the infrastructure of the large cities so that the population somehow survives and then the Ukrainians themselves will take care of the Nazi thugs.”

And that’s why Novorossia must be supported in both defense against the junta and minimizing, then rebuilding infrastructure and it’s economy. Then it will be in a position and be a foothold to allow other regions to join it and escape the terror from the chaos of the western parts.
It will not only form a buffer for Russia but also be a contrast and escape for EU to deal with the Kievian chaos on the EU border. One can’t eat a whole loaf in one bite, and it’s much easier for Russia to restore Novorossia, both in terms of resources and the Ukrainian people, than all of Ukraine with it’s fascist warlords.

Great analysis! I have only one issue with it, the author leaves out the role of China. The rise of China is the key to understanding this confrontation between Russia and the US, and why it must be a fight to the finish.

Without the rise of China the US was willing to give, and Russia to accept, token equality. As Ishchenko points out Russia up to 2008 was only interested in taking independent decisions within its regional sphere of influence. The author is also correct to point out that internal problems and contradictions within the US will likely become quite acute by 2020-25 time frame. However it is not correct to assume that this would lead to the US losing its global hegemony.

Without a dynamic and global economic rival to present the world with a clear alternative to the US, even internal American collapse and reordering will not bring American global hegemony to an end. It is the presence of the world stage of such a rival that makes the current internal weaknesses and decline of the US fatal to its world hegemony. That rival is China.

This is the reason why according Russia token equality is unacceptable to the US. There is a cascade of geopolitical imperatives that make a US confrontation with Russia inevitable and they center around China.

1. The rise of China must be stopped or controlled if the US is to retain its hegemony.
2. The only way to control the rise of China is to control its access to raw material and markets
3. The only way to do 2 above is to control China’s sea borne and land based trade routes.
4. If the US chokes China’s sea routes. China can use land routes.
5. The only way to choke China’s land routes to control Russia.

Thus it follows that Russia cannot be permitted to carry out independent decisions even regionally. If the US is to stop or control China, Russia must either cease to exist or become a complete US vassal.

Sort of a replay of the events leading to WW1. Britain ruled the seas, Germany built a railroad to Bagdad. Ergo: Germany must be destroyed.
The easiest way to get your neighbour to buy water from you is to poison his well.

In 1991, as part of the sanctions regime, the ever benevolent
US Department of Defence laid out a plan to systematically
degrade Iraq’s national water supply.
The consequences would be
” shortage of pure drinking water for much of the population.
This could lead to increased incidences, if not epidemics,
of disease and to certain pure water-dependent industries
such as Hospitals becoming incapacitated.
Also included:
Petrochemicals
Fertilizers
Petroleum refining
Electronics
Pharmaceuticals
Food processing”

Now in 2015, we have systematic attacks on Novorussian civilian infrastructure,
including water supplies, apparently with the same intent

Or sponsor insurgencies and protest movements in order to destabilize governments where Chinese state-owned firms have been winning contracts against their US, EU rivals. Countries are then cut off from trade and US military aid unless they accept US basing.

The USA won’t be defeated militarily or economically, but financially. The US dollar has to go! And only China, protected by superior Russian military high-tech and its vast natural resources, can sink the US dollar. And they will. Time frame: Who knows? 6-36 months?

I think he’s joking,. But if you really think you really have a virus, do NOT use scanners that won’t fix anything — those are scams that cost you money to do a “fix”. Use this which is free, excellent, and does remove viruses, if you have one https://www.malwarebytes.org/mwb-download/

“Is that why they opened the floodgates for Visa and MasterCard to come do business in China today?

I thought the idea was to get out of the west’s monetary system and networks.

Good luck with that now that the fox is in the hen house.”

Credit card debt accounts for a small fraction of the total debt in the U.S. Outstanding private debt is in the neighborhood of $47 Trillion…Credit card debt was less than $1Trillion last time I checked.

This is the old Great Game. It was spelled out already in 1904 by Sir Halford Mackinder in “The Geographical Pivot of History”, an article submitted to the Royal Geographical Society that advanced his Heartland Theory, which can be resumed thus: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the world.”
The World-Island, is the interlinked continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa. This is the largest, most populous, and richest of all possible land combinations. The Heartland lay at the centre of the world island, stretching from the Volga to the Yangtze and from the Himalayas to the Arctic. Mackinder’s Heartland was the area then ruled by the Russian Empire and after that by the Soviet Union, minus the Kamchatka Peninsula region.
Outside the World-Island are:
The offshore islands, including the British Isles and the islands of Japan.
The outlying islands, including the continents of North America, South America, and Australia.
The offshore and the outlying islands would be what Orwell called Oceania, forever trying to conquer the Heartland (Eurasia) but forever failing, because despite their temporary dominance of the Oceans, they cannot control the land routes. The Heartland is impregnable by forces which would need to be supplied from outside. It is true that “the only way to choke China’s land routes to control Russia. If the US is to stop or control China, Russia must either cease to exist or become a complete US vassal.” But that precisely is impossible.

Sometime at the end of the Clinton Administration I read a US whitepaper and interview of Bill Clinton that covered exactly what you just wrote about; how to keep the United States and the Americas economically and geopolitically relevant, in light of the natural tendencies of traditional trade routes reemerging in Asia to Europe. I believe it was a Pentagon whitepaper that mentioned the very real concern that over time the Americas would be eclipsed by locus of power shifting to the heart of Asia and by extension Eurasia. The paper outlined the dangers to US national and economic security and discussed various ways to deal with this so that the US would always be relevant to world trade.

An interview with Bill Clinton was published at about the same time. The most salient point he made when asked what is that he would like to have achieved for the US as his legacy, he responded that he would like to have left the US in position where the US is essential to the global economic system. Clinton said this in the context of both India and China’s growing economies. According to Clinton (then, 1999-2000)) it was inevitable that the GDPs of these two countries would eclipse the GDP of the United States in the 21st century and therefore, to maintain the current standard of loving, it was critical that US position it’s economy so that it be an essential and indispensable part of the global economic system.

I don’t have the links or the original articles but the above was the gist of it.

Please, Charette. WizOz is putting forward a macro view that spans centuries of time and the great majority of the the planet’s habitable land area and living persons. Do you propose those real, physical considerations are outweighed by a few million pieces of plastic? Or the symbology of it all? Then I suppose Moscow has already been defeated by the presence there of a few sets of golden arches??

Give me a break. I’ve lived in the USA since 1963 and the only reason I twice succumbed to those arches in 52 years was that I was overruled by several silly children and I wasn’t driving.

Give up the pessimism and look for weak flanks of the Empire that you can kick with all your might, or just admit you would hate to be wrong and see the human race triumph and the Empire and its elites be defeated by the evolution and the maturation of our species.Ummm?

You speak only for yourself and other losers, Anonymous. “Afraid”: That says it all. Go hide in your chicken coup on the Animal farm. That would be doing yourself and the rest of us a big favor. Seriously. Listen to yourself: Are you a man or a mouse?

I agree, Ngoyo. Libya was a stepping stone to the same goals that both Russia and China opposed with words but did not stop, though both recognized they were the ultimate targets, so they were on high alert, and able to stymie the next stepping stone to global hegemony preservation, Syria.

Americans, our job is to take our country back from its neocon hijackers and Wall St pimps like Obama, Hillary Clinton (replace pimp with another word of oldest profession ancestry), and Jeb, grandson of Hitler financial backer Prescott Bush.

If not we may get deservedly spanked by an alliance of three quarters of humanity. WAKE UP!

Ann, and Anonymous doubter of my posts and Prescott’s role in rescuing Adolf and his floundering National Socialists from electoral defeat, bancruptcy, and historical oiblivion:

1. Grandfather Prescott Bush.

2. Father George Herbert Walker Bush 41 alias “Rubbers” (as in condoms….stay tuned a few more lines…it’s in the Biograpy you need to read…….)

3. Sons of “Rubbers” : Dubya 43 and Jebbie Boy. Now, is that a grandson or a great- grandson?

Second of all, Anonymous may be well intended on the subject of Prescott and Adolf but he is woefully uniformed. Please go onto Amazon.com and search The Unauthorized Biography of George H W Bush co-authored by Chaitkin and Tarpley and buy it.

Inside you will also find important treatment of Bush Family patriarch Prescott Bush, former 1942 CFO of Union Bank and the proof of the veracity of the post you have commented on, in all honesty, I hope. In the book you will find documentation from the United States Library of Congress of an Executive Order that was issued in early 1942, after the US declarations of war against Japan and Germany, ordering the closing of Union Bank on Wall St under the Trading With The Enemy Act.

The rest will become clear to you and you will be equipped to help consign this disgusting family to the well deserved dustbin American history, if we ever learn to burn bushes instead of electing them. That is of immediate relevance in the current US pre-election phase.

First of all, I don’t think Bush had anything at all to do with Hitler’s success in Germany -absolutely none, but secondly it might be interesting, considering all things, that Jeb Bush is apparently married to the daughter of a former President of Mexico, a VERY rich man, Vincente Fox, and he is Jewish. And, I do not see anything in the article about the constant demands of Israel, nor any mention of the fact that Amerika is ruled by the Jews.

I was not there and so I cannot be dogmatic about WW2 and all that, but there is a book shop where one can find very interesting books: http://www.barnesreview.org

anon…you’re living in the past…check out Carroll Quigley’s book, ‘The Anglo – American Establishment’ or even better…check out Guido Preparata’s book “Conjuring Hitler” all about Prescott Bush…its a fact….

‘Putin can maintain his role as the linchpin of the system only as long as he has the support of the majority of the population.’

I think Putin’s support depends on more than a simple majority – more than 50%. His support stems from a an overwhelming majority, I think that most Russians (80%) understand the nature of the threat as well as this author. Russians are getting really, really pissed off.

For me personally it’s frustrating to attempt conversations about current events with Americans at large. Russians, on the other hand, seem to have a better grasp of historical processes. They even have a better understanding of US history.

Yeah,
and all these 80% of Putin supporters sit in Russia watching TV or online…
safe – because tractor drivers and miners fight for Russian Federation as (not) said by Ishchenko.
Well, what about the babushkas of Donbass suffering, what about the children dieing? Where do they fit in all this analysis obsessed by geopolitics?!
Israel cares about lifes of Jews all around the world, instantly and strongly. Is it a nuclear superpower huge country rich on natural resources with over 150 mil. inhabitants?
Do you remember what Churchill did say about choosing not to fight and than getting both shame and war anyway?

But mostly they do have a weird understanding of their own history.
April 22nd – many of them celebrate the birthday of the bolshevik Lenin. Having a morque on main square for almost 90 years is just sick.
You will see on May victory parade some posters of Stalin, the mass murder of own people which is worse than Hitlers obsession was (and also lasted for a longer time).
Of course Putin can not abolish the Mausoleum or denounce Stalin,
his popularity would fall to 40%…………

When Stalin talked to Eisenstein regarding how he portrayed Ivan the Terrible, he stated that were Ivan the terrible to destroy all great Nobel families, the time of troubles in Russia would not happen. Such people like Yeltsin and Navalni should not be allowed to roam streets free or they must be exterminated for public good.
Octavian Augustus on the other hand wisely exterminated noble great families of Rome -those who opposed him and were major busy bodies creating chaos in Republic public life -and as a result achieved stability.

Really, w** is going on here with the comments? Slowly it feels like on VT or some such crazies-ridden outlet. Seems like some forces deliberately want to pull the level of discussion all the way down into the worst of sh**holes.

Dear T2015…well, if its any consolation…you’re my favorite commenter. And I, having lived a very peaceful life, except for my own troublesome youth…have actually no idea what the Yemeni people and the Armenians and the Serbs…you’re Serb right ? …. have lived through….God I hope this horrible world regime can be overcome.

It’s true about knowing American history. So often over the years I’ve been in a discussion where it became evident that the non-American(s) knew more about American history than the Americans themselves.

Yesterday, Kat Can and Anonymous discussed the “Rotenberg Law”. Anon. thought that said law was created to support the oligarchs to the loss of the people.

I found reference to said law in the NYT:

“MOSCOW — The Russian Parliament on Wednesday took the first major step to authorize the Kremlin to seize foreign assets and use them to compensate individuals and businesses being hurt by Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.

Legislation that passed its first round stands to arm the government of President Vladimir V. Putin with a remarkable weapon of retribution, effectively allowing the government to compensate the same insider businessmen and other elite who Western leaders had hoped would persuade the Russian leader to reverse course in Ukraine.

Although its full parameters were still unclear and it faces several hurdles, the legislation has the potential to ensnare large multinational corporations that have invested heavily in Russia. Global companies like McDonald’s, Pepsi and ExxonMobil hold tens of billions of dollars of assets in the energy-rich country.”

This is the only legal kind of analysis I’ve come across on that law — and on his reading it’s all about Crimea-related issues, not unlucky oligarchs. The main point seems to be the right to confiscate properties in Russia of the countries involved.

Anyway chances are good this law is going nowhere. It was introduced by a minor party, it’s had one reading, it requires 2 lower house and one upper house reading and passage and THEN Putin still has to sign it.

It could become interesting though if Ukraine persists with its latest crazy idea to “nationalise” Russian assets, eg Gazprom’s gas pipes…. there are some Ukrainian assets inside Russia, not the least among them Poroshenko’s chocolate factory. So a law like this is good as a threat, probably better as a threat than as an actual law.

Remember several times now when the “too big to fail” banks were bailed out? Lehman Brothers? General Motors? while literally millions lost their homes and jobs? and pensioners were not compensated for their self-funded pensions being lost by the managers in the share market casino?

“Gordura has taken another step to revolution.Caught by the balls Western sanctions oligarchs , the government will pay the value of their property.

October 8 in the first reading the state Duma has approved the bill “villas Rotenberg”, involving the payment of compensation to victims of sanctions Russians. Experts innovation is not appreciated.

PALACES BROTHERS RATEBELOW NEAR MOSCOW. By the way-close friends of Putin . Last month, Italian authorities seized property worth 40 million dollars, owned by the Rotenberg, who also came under sanctions.
What is the essence

Under the bill, citizens affected by the unjust decision of a foreign court, are entitled to compensation at the expense of the Federal budget. Explain that in the accompanying documents to the “Rotenberg law” States: “the imposition of foreign courts judgments in cases which should be considered by the Russian courts, “admits intrusion into the jurisdiction of the courts, as well as a violation of sovereignty of the Russian Federation”. “Such judicial acts of foreign courts are recognized manifestly unjust”.

In order to receive financial compensation, which, by the way, determined by the amount of losses suffered by the people, need to apply to a Russian court of General jurisdiction or Arbitration court with the corresponding statement.

The document also noted that compensated from the Federal budget will not only the losses people have suffered, but also those likely to be incurred, i.e. the potential.
The bill also provides for the possibility of application of interim measures for the account of the arrest of the Russian property of foreigners who initiated the illegal sentence of a foreign court.
“If it (the property) is not enough or if it is missing, due to the property of a foreign state, the court which rendered an unjust judicial act,” specified in the explanatory note.
The name of the bill was named after Arkady Rotenberg, a Russian billionaire. As it turned out, the day of the introduction of the document to the state Duma, Rothenberg lost Italian assets worth 30 million euros. In addition, the country was sealed several objects of his estate.
It should be noted, initially, the author of the document, the representative of the lower chamber of the Supreme court Vladimir Ponevejsky, noted that the bill is not about oligarchs, got under sanctions of the USA, and about the residents of Sevastopol and Crimea. The experts are convinced the idea about Federal compensation is another way of officials to enrich themselves.
This huge mansion, valued at bellino dollars , is currently owned by an entrepreneur and owner of the football club Monaco Dmitry Rybolovlev Right on the ocean in Florida has more than 5,500 square meters. More than 50 Parking spaces.
Split

The fact that “it smells like kerosene, felt and representatives of the opposition factions. So things are moving too quickly to adopt the controversial “law Rotenberg”. Turned out that the “United Russia”, in which the majority voted for the introduction of the bill into force, separated from the other parties. Representatives of the CPRF, LDPR, “Fair Russia”, the voice said: the bill turned out to be somehow unfair.

“There are a lot of questions on this law, starting with why such a momentous document one, albeit dear, author, why not the government or the Committee of the state Duma have made him. To help citizens need, but in this case it could be legal assistance, including payment Western lawyers. A huge number of people have suffered from the sanctions, and it companies, and individuals, from the text of the law is unclear who to help, in what manner and to the extent – some issues”, – said Oleg Nilov, Deputy head of the party “Fair Russia”.

“We offer budget be spent on compensation of losses of large corporations and oligarchs, it’s not fair,” protested after Alexei Didenko, first Deputy head of the LDPR.

“We actually encourage vieos of capital from the country in various forms that is not the task of economic policy. From my point of view it would be counterproductive,” said the head of economic development Alexei Ulyukayev.

Society resents

A wave of outrage, the bill has caused not only the opposition, but also in society. Russian bloggers, political analysts and representatives of the business community one after the other spoke in favor of the adoption of the “law Rotenberg” is a real undermining of public faith in the state.

The fact that the money in the Federal budget act including taxes Russians. Accordingly, decent taxpayers will have his own expense “to pay back” the property fell under US sanctions from others.

“The law on compensation of allocating funds from the budget to those who have suffered from the sanctions of the West, looks outright spitting in the direction of the population. It is unclear why the problem of some oligarchs and officials who have Western sanctions take their belongings back-breaking labor, as the spac in the Comedy “Ivan Vasilyevich changes occupation”, should citizens pay. Have no villas on the Azure shores and other useless stuff,” says, for example, a military expert Anatoly Nesmiyan.

Why the “law Rotenberg”?

Experts are convinced currently in Russia there is a very serious tandem of business and government. It is not about the medium and small business, which is very sensitive to any innovation, experimentation, taxes and so on, and about the business major.
Western sanctions will inevitably have affected companies that operate under the authority of the state, and this could not fail to arouse the indignation of the Russian oligarchy. To somehow make amends, the government had to take certain measures that would have made “cool” representatives of the business community.

“Tax on Russian citizens in favor of the rich needs to appease the elite. The authorities are afraid of their rebellion. And Russian society will accept the adoption of the law. Over the last decade, people accustomed: the protests will achieve nothing. This law and other controversial government decisions will be taken passively,” said culture expert Andrey Stolyarov.

There are advantages
West also reacted ambiguously to the “law Rotenberg”. The American media has called the document another party of Russian retaliatory sanctions against the United States. Moreover, analysts of The New York Times believe that the adoption of this bill will give Vladimir Putin a “weapon of retaliation”.

In the case of adoption of a document that will serve as a kind of financial cushion for Russian oligarchs, the West’s attempts to economically pressure on the inner circle of Vladimir Putin can be reversed.

The experts also stressed that the sanctions resulted in a completely unintended consequences. The Russian business community has used them to claim additional payments from the Russian budget.

Now, when will the winter period and in the consideration of the “law Rotenberg”, Europe is hardly dare on another package of sanctions against Russia. The fact that the probability is sufficiently rigid gas response on our part. This is evidenced, for example, an independent analyst Alexei Smirnov.

“About sanctions of the third and fourth group, in our opinion, can be serious only if our troops take Kiev. Currently this facility is purely hypothetical. This is due to the fact that sanctions against Russian private companies with the big share of probability will entail retaliatory sanctions against European companies in Russia. And this is billions of dollars in losses. This is an extreme measure of last resort to prevent war”.

“The widening of the existing sanctions in winter conditions can only be purely symbolic. In winter there is always a risk that in response, Russia could cut off gas supplies to Europe. Therefore, the EU can only threaten new sanctions, but the real introduction to them will not go”.

On the setup and the motivations, this seems very sound. On the implications and predictions I’m not so sure I buy it. Some of the stuff about war in the EU seems overstated, for instance. The EU has already soaked up masses of refugees from the Middle East and from various imploding Balkan countries. Refugees from the Ukraine might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, but I see no reason in particular for it when the Syrians and the Libyans and the Iraqis and the Serbs and the Macedonians and who knows who all, haven’t.

I also think the discounting, here and there, of the possibility of independent and significant action by smaller actors is rather facile. Venezuela is a small, normally insignificant country. But if it were not for Hugo Chavez and the masses of people in Venezuela struggling for a different society, Latin America as a whole would today be a very different place. It was largely diplomacy by Chavez that created various political and economic organizations that have greatly strengthened Latin American independence from the US. Meanwhile the radical example of Venezuela both encouraged other countries and political movements to deviate from the Washington Consensus and gave them political cover while they did so (The Americans were mostly too busy trying to figure out how to stop Chavez to pay that much attention to less radical deviations that they normally would have swatted). It is now pretty much too late; even traditional American clients such as Colombia are repudiating American policies, coming out against the US on both Cuba and Venezuela. My point here is that a whole continent has been changed in good part due to one relatively small, fairly poor country which would normally be considered strategically insignificant. This was accomplished by the combination of a good man and strong popular action, grassroots leadership from below refusing to be denied. It is easy to brush aside what, for instance, the Novorossiyans themselves want as unimportant on the grand chessboard, Zbigniew Brzezinski style–but popular aspirations do not just go away because they are unimportant or inconvenient to grand chessplayers. That’s why the US keep losing their wars. It would be foolish for Putin to ignore that and I doubt he does.

Russia virtually made fun of chavez during medvedev time and even putin did not fare better with venezuela as he could have done-all to please the anglosaxon parasites.
Russia treat her allies with contempt so russia will have no ally when time comes.

An excellent and very perceptive analysis by Rostislav Ishchenko. He makes it clear — and to many Europeans (if they understand it) this will come as a big (and perhaps for them unbelievable) surprise — that the U.S. is willing to destroy Europe in order to defeat Russia. If the Europeans can understand that this is so then they have a chance to save themselves by forming a mutually beneficial alliance with Russia (and its allies). But if they insist on believing that their alliance with the U.S. is sacrosanct, or that (especially in Germany) Russia will always be The Enemy, then before long they will be toast.

I am always surprised to see that people assume Europe is independent. It’s everything but! Since the end of WWII Europe is basically US-occupied territory. Particularly Germany. All European media is CIA-controlled. All top politician, bankers, academics are NATO-assets. 100%. Deutsche Bank is in the hands of Wall Street, so is the DAX, the German stock exchange. The whole undemocratic EU politburo is a US-proxy. Mario Draghi is a Goldman Sachs banker. So is Mario Renzi, Prime Minister of Italy.

The only possibility of salvation for Europe that I see is a popular revolution in the streets (and not just in Berlin). The European politicians etc. are corrupt but the people of Europe are not stupid (at least, compared to those of some other countries). And we have the example of the street demonstrations in Leipzig in 1989 which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Six weeks after they began, the number of people demonstrating in the Karl Marx Platz each week had grown to well over 100,000. Admittedly the East German politicians were somewhat sympathetic to the demonstrators. In the present case it might be necessary for the politicians to be removed from office, in ways other than via the usual means, and for all NATO bases and assets to be neutralized. OK, very unlikely. But at the first sign of a possible nuke strike the minds of the Europeans might well come to be concentrated on their continued survival, though probably too late.

If the ex Jeltsin s minister Lavrov .mean that who said in his today interview then surrenderRussia to west.. “Neither we nor Iran needs a military alliance. I am certain about it and we received no proposals in that regard. That would be unrealistic and unnecessary,” he said.

He commented on the recent suggestion by Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan, who suggested that Iran, Russia, China and India could form a military block to oppose NATO, saying that the four countries are already engaged in the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Lavrov added that Russia would further develop military cooperation with Iran after the UN Security Council lifts arms trade restrictions under an expected nuclear deal between Tehran and leading world powers.

lavrov could not be any worse than the worst 5th columnist even if he wanted.
he is a total failure and is a dangerous asset against Russia.
russian misfortune is to tolerate such people in the high position for so long -such a failure as foreign minister .
he still talks about possibility of avoiding cold war-as if he is not in hot or at least warm war now!

I have a lot of problems with this article, most of all the question about whether Russia would want the (by now totally psychologically poisoned) population of Ukraine in its own lands now or at any time in the future. Also, I don’t think the assertion that the conflict will be restricted to proxy wars can be justified. Clearly, the Imperialist States imagines it can fight and win a nuclear war, and as clearly Russia is gearing up to fight said nuclear war (for instance the S 500 missile system, whose primary purpose is to defeat Amerikastani nuclear missiles). At the same time, the fact of the matter is that ultimately the EU is comprised of vassals, and vassals aren’t going to rebel against their feudal lord when they haven’t yet despite all the abuse he’s subject them to. So the coming war will still be between NATO and Russia.﻿

One question… what is all this talk about the U.S. nearing collapse? I’ve spent 15 years in the U.S. and I must say, I’ve never seen it as busy as now: super heavy traffic, restaurants are packed, construction everywhere… I travel quite a bit and the one striking thing wherever I go is the wild construction everywhere…

Neighbors are buying cars, improving their yards, refurbishing their homes, etc. Today we learned that existing home sales were up more than 6% in March… hardly the stuff of a collapsing economy.

As for China and Russia and the brics fighting the U.S., we know that trade between the U.S. and Russia is at an all time high. Also today China gave U.S. credit card companies a huge present and shares of Visa are skyrocketing (check it out).

The American middle class is being destroyed because of multinational corporations shipping millions of American jobs overseas and because the government is allowing in so many illegal aliens from Mexico.
The labor participation rate is horrible, which explains why so many American are on food stamps from the government.
Infrastructure in America is rotting. Gee, guess we could spent that over $TRILLION in Iraq here at home.

Agreed. Sounds like wishful thinking on the part of Ishchenko. The American/Anglo/Zionist Oligarchs will not passively disappear frome the scene. As long as they retain political power they can print all the $money they need, and can be counted on to continue their terrorist crimes.

On the economic front: Indeed, housing & all sorts of construction is booming where I and the Saker live. There remains deep pockets of poverty, unemployment, and underemployment. However, the American (los de abajo) underclass has no political, or any other power whatever. They just float on the wind, and sleep under the overpasses and in the subways.

Ischenko should travel around the United States before making sweeping declarations of -the sky is falling- in the Western imperialist nations.

He underestimates the effectiveness of the rebel Partisan militias of Novorossiya, as well as the stubborn armies of Syria, and Egypt. It is the fighting Partisan Militias who have bought time and hope for Russia, and Europe, and the world, not any specific Russian or other leadership.

Vladimir Putin has been an effective President of Russia, and the Russian Voentorg has been vital to the continued existence of the anti-fascist forces, but those who sacrifice themsevles on the battlefield are not secondary in the freedom equation.

No power structure voluntarily leaves the scene of history. Even Marx knew that.

The Russians can’t do it alone. And the Chinese lack the vision (they lack a Democratic Republic). Western imperialism with their Democrat Liberal and Socialist gang governments, from France to the United States, can only be defeated by Democratic Republics, which are powered by free citizens in perpetual motion. And the Indians do not yet have the fire in their belly. They fear to bury the hatchet with Pakistan, and turn and face the real enemy.

It would be nice (helpful) if the American people would awaken from their slumber and, like Mighty Mouse, come to the rescue, And Save the Day!

We must Restore our Republic, destroyed on November 22, 1963. And by that act alone we would restore a peaceful global balance of power and International Law.

You are certainly right. Reading very carefully the above article, one realizes that almost every single statement in it deserves a denial and has an obvious counter-argument… Which was easy to do aloud while reading along, but would take one forever to write it all down, the result would be as lengthy as the sorry missive itself… The premises of the main arguments are wrong to start with … not to mention lack of a clear methodology of analysis, quoting of the military sage of ancient China notwithstanding. Another attempt at courtly apologetics.

I think you both ought to look into what is being said among the top analysts not connected to the federal government and not invested in selling gold (alarmism tainted by profit motive). Zero Hedge (website) publishes some good articles. Paul Craig Roberts (former treasury official) also has some good perspectives, though he can get quite emotional, & that turns some people off.

I, personally, recommend Martin Armstrong of Armstrong Economics (he has a blog). Armstrong is the developer of the Economic Confidence Model based on business cycles and pi. He predicted the crash of 1987 to the very day. He also predicted the Nikkei’s collapse in 1989 and Russia’s financial collapse in 1998. Because he would not turn his model over to the US government, he incurred the wrath of the Clinton Administration & was set up with bogus charges of racketeering (there is a documentary about it called “The Forecaster.”). Armstrong, among others, is predicting that America will really fall into a downward slide by the end of the year, peaking around 2025. His blog & some of the articles that come across Zero Hedge offer some good arguments about the fasade of a false economic recovery, including fudged numbers out of Washington.

I wish we could see a convergence of the minds of Saker & Armstrong. Although I find Armstrong’s understandings of Russia rather weak, this is the kind of intellectual “cross pollination” that needs to happen to try to steer the world in a more positive direction. Armstrong argues that when the shit hits the fan in the US, the US people (most of whom, while quite naive & infused with the false understandings of propaganda, do not want to take over the world or do harm to others) will either become beset by totalitarianism (see the I infrustructure put in place by the “war on terror”) or become liberated from the global & elite establishment now running Washington. It just depends on how the people navigate it.

Armstrong and Zero Hedge have been predicting the end of the world for seven years now.

Today I think I can say that Zero Hedge has been wrong on just about any topic imaginable (their coverage of European politics is straight out ludicrous).

Also, one thing ZH does is that they will report only stories on companies missing estimates, etc., while never reporting on all the companies reporting missive revenue and earnings gains and so on.

I like PCR, but he is more often wrong than right when it comes to forecasts. I do agree with his assessment that Putin is somewhat weak, though.

Just get off line, walk around and tell me if this is a country collapsing?

As I said I’ve spent 15 years here and I’ve never felt that kind of energy. You can also see it on people’s faces: they look happy whereas everybody was gloomy around 2009-10. Sure you will tell me you see homeless people, etc., but which country doesn’t have this problem?

Again… it’s one thing to despise the empire, it’s another to rely on wishful thinking analysis.

“… it’s one thing to despise the empire, it’s another to rely on wishful thinking analysis …”

Exactly.

In the 2008, -9, -10 America, every Tom, Dick and Harry was a Nostradamus on the “imminent demise” of Yankee Empire, like, within a day or two. Advising their soft-headed compatriots to “invest in gold ‘n silver” for “there’s gonna be run on the banks”… … While in Russia, “Professor of Diplomatic Academy of RF” (teaching some evening courses there) was embarrassing his entire Motherland by solemnly predicting the “breakup of the USA into five pieces” (even wrote a book about it :-)), pushing the date of the happy event every year, finally saying “no later than in 2010”. And 2010 came … and passed … and the USA was still in one piece rather than five, just imagine. Though the Professor himself disappeared instead, not teaching at the Diplomatic Academy any longer… (Ever heard of Igor Panarin :-?) So, some were then selling gold and silver, some were selling books, but what is this Rostislav hoping for now? A ticket for the 9th of May parade :-?

Well, on one hand, you’ve clearly seen more of the United States than I have. On the other, you’re basically just giving a plural of anecdotes (which is to say, not data). US regions and cities differ widely in how they’re doing; maybe what you’ve seen is representative, maybe it ain’t.

The “unemployment rate” is lower than it was, but the employment rate hasn’t gone up any and the median wage seems to have actually gone down since the worst of the recession. I keep seeing statistics that the top 1% have collected 95% of the benefits of economic growth since the recession–but the reality is worse than that sounds. Why? Because the next 9% got a reasonable chunk as well, almost certainly more than 5%, which is to say the other 90% of the US got less than nothing. I don’t know just where the cutoff is, how high up you had to be before the recovery period became on average a gain, but bottom line the recovery has actually continued to be a recession for the majority. Poverty has continued to increase. One thing I know about the American economy is that over the last year or two the US statistical bodies have invented a number of new ways to fudge their economic data so they will look better. If the economy was doing all that well, you wouldn’t think such moves would be necessary.

There may well be quite a bit of construction going on. The rich have more money, and corporations have high profits. But overall, I think the recovery is paper thin. If you travel on business, I’m suspecting you may be getting a skewed picture–presumably you travel to where the business is, as opposed to where it isn’t. The places where the business isn’t, where you would have no reason to go, are the ones you need to worry about.

Of course, that was anecdotal material – but denying that the US overall living standard is surely declining was not the point. Yes, it is declining. But the difference between such a decline – and the country’s impending “demise” touted by the mindless alarmists is indeed a huge one.

Of serious academic analysts (which by definition eliminates Rostislav and his louder “match” Panarin) on the topic, one that comes to mind is a reputable French demographer and historian Emmanuel Todd. He wrote a book in 2001 – fourteen years ago already – predicting purely on basis of solid statistical demographic and economic data a coming fall in the living standard in the US, to the point where it will become more or less equal to that in many developing countries. The data that you mention in part vindicate his predictions.

As for the status of the U.S. as a world empire, his opinion matches the title of his book: Après L’Empire: essai sur la décomposition du système américain – After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order. He said even then, that the USA had already ceased to be be deserving of such a title! He made the observation that all the empires in history suddenly resorted to reckless military adventures in their declining years, and that the behavior of the USA already matched that pattern – and would become only much worse in the coming years. Right on target.

In 2003 Emmanuel Todd gave an interview on this topic to the Swiss paper die Neue Zürcher Zeitung, ”The Conceited Empire” (“Das eingebildete Imperium – Interview mit dem französischen Historiker und Demographen Emmanuel Todd”). The web link I had to the original expired, but here is an English translation (misspelled “Zuricher”, instead of Zuercher = Zürcher :-)): http://www.dominionpaper.ca/features/2003/07/26/the_concei.html

Says in part:

“… The US leadership doesn’t know anymore where to turn. They know that they are monetarily dependent on the rest of the world, and they are afraid of becoming inconsequential. There are no more Nazis and Communists. While a demographic, democratic, and politically stabilizing world recognizes that it is increasingly less dependent on the US, America is discovering that it is increasingly dependent on the rest of the world. That is the reason for the rush into military action and adventures. It is classic. … The only remaining superiority is military. This is classic for a crumbling system. The final glory is militarism. …”

Concerning lowering of living standards, it appears that the other AngloZionist countries have the same problem. According to the Australian economists, the residents of the Green continent are facing a decrease in living standards – the first time in many years.

In U.S. for 15 years, Then you probably weren’t here in the glorious Spring of 1929 (not that I was either, but…).
A very good percentage of the world (not those in America, of course) realizes that dollars are printed on papel de bano. Soon.

You are being a fool Charette. Arguing that we have nothing to fear because all previous warnings have failed. How many times have problems been “solved” by kicking them down the road. Can’t you see that they are just accumulating? Can’t you see that all the activity you see around you is all paid for in the never never? Just more can kicking.
Reality will defeat all your Pollyanna blurb. You will probably lose everything.

Surely the job of moderators is NOT to moderate foolish or wrongheaded (yeah, in w hose opinion??) statements but to weed out only the absolutely unacceptable according to clear guidelines that the blog owner, namely, The Saker, has laid down. There aren’t that many of them: types of speech or topics that are prohibited. Comments such as “Mr. Moderator, yoo hoo, why don’t you “moderate” the above type of claptrap or choice of words out of existence”—well hey, why not “moderate” such exhortations to the moderators out of existence???

Just mind your own business, not everyone else’s! Respond with your own reasoned arguments, not with demands that items you do not like should be “moderated.” This could become a functional euphemism for interference, censorship, and general quashing.

Saker is correct. This article is a penetrating analysis of world politics based on the civil war in Ukraine. On its death thaw the US is trying to turn the progress of history backwards and its has the capability in bringing human civilization to a screeching end. The skillful president of Russia has so far managed to prevent the world from sliding into chaos. If Europe comes to its senses, the combined forces of Europe and Russia might drive the US out of the region without a major war.

I’ve long cautioned Russians not to overestimate the rationality of our leaders. A rational empire would have realized years ago its resources for continued world occupation were depleting the country and begun a program of retrenchment. The treatment of South America, for instance, has been sheer folly, allowing Russia and China to make significant inroads. And while I realize the Zionist lobby is inadvertently helping Putin by bashing Iran (thereby keeping Iranian gas from competing with Russian gas in the European market) it also trails in its wake a gaggle of Apocalyptic end-time nut jobs that long for total war and a “Second Coming.” (Or a “First Coming” in the case of Zionist whack jobs.) These people have some substantial political clout, e.g., Ted Cruz. Bibi Netanyahu can override the President and address a joint session of Congress to thunderous applause. What does that tell you? Yes, Putin’s view is rational and sound. How many real revolutionaries did it take to make the Russian Revolution? Not many. And there are far more of the Neocon war nutjobs in the U.S. and they are better financed than the Lenin crowd. Putin’s focus on Southern Europe is also sound. With the reformation of Eurasia and the reconstruction of the old Silk Road, Southern Europe could eclipse Northern Europe as a trade gateway and energy hub. Perhaps that’s why Southern Europe is being thrashed so badly so as to keep this “gateway” under control.

“I’ve long cautioned Russians not to overestimate the rationality of our leaders. A rational empire would have realized years ago its resources for continued world occupation were depleting the country and begun a program of retrenchment.”

Empires are not paid to be rational. They are in extremis vehicles to be run ragged for the benefit of Transnational Capital before being discarded at the side of the road for a newer model. America and its dollar have served swimmingly to impregnate the world with a massive ticking short squeeze that will decimate the world’s economies when interest rates start creeping up. People still don’t grasp debt’s first-order identity as a weapon of social immobilization. Greece is not an anomaly–it’s a mineshaft canary!

Before the US is shed like an empty husk, it is to serve as the spearhead for one final war. Netanyahu helps us to a better sense of the American Empire’s transient nature: “Once we squeeze all we can out of the United States, it can dry up and blow away”.

CruzClintonRubioPaul are like spokesmodels or bus drivers on a prescribed route. Beware parsing their varying ‘platforms’ as you can easily lose yourself in the trees. They are univocal in all that matters. The rationality, rest assured, has not vacated the transcendent powers that preside above the Empire. Lest you get carried away, Putin is equally beholden to this power, despite romantic effusions to the contrary. We are simply in a rocky interregnum period where one fading recalcitrant Empire is chafing at the deterministic insistence of history. Given the lethalities on the planet today, the extrication process from one empire to the next will have to be endured (and hopefully survived) only this one final time. America is the last empire. In the aftermath of WW3, God willing, the world will gladly accede to a unitary one-world government which will ‘relieve of these ruinous national antagonisms.’ Whew. For a minute there, I thought the NWO would never arrive. –nb

“Bibi Netanyahu can override the President and address a joint session of Congress to thunderous applause.”

To an internationalist, yesterday’s national boundaries are today’s speedbumps, at best silly queues in customs lines. Your sense of affront is thus quaintly anachronistic, as it affords the US too much old-school deference; that somehow its national discreteness (with all trappings thereunto appertaining: flags, national anthems, an answerable military and currency, a sense of national purpose, etc.) had somehow been trammeled underfoot by a national leader of comparable standing. This was not a protocol faux pas. Rather it was protocol revisionism under the new rules of NWO engagement. Obama was not ‘overidden’. America is de facto overidden. So no offense should be taken.

In fact Netanyahu was conveying a symbolically-fraught message to YOU, only you failed to see it as anything other than Boehner’s ill-considered invitation. Bibi was visiting a Zionist Administrative District (ZAD). In the most profoundly existential sense, there are no longer any borders. There is not even what can be reasonably called a ‘foreign lobby’. There are now only borderless directives and transnational marching orders. –nb

I don’t see it in terms of an ill-conceived invitation but a demonstration of what you said–that the U.S. no longer exists as commonly seen but is subservient to occult (in the sense of being hidden) forces. Hence, an assumption that the “U.S.” is acting rationally may produce an erroneous conclusion, i.e., that its foreign policy gyrations are somehow for its own benefit.

What a wonderfull and well thought out article. I wholeheartedly agree, although it might be worth noting how long the US and Europe can keep the lid on their journalists. One would have to imagine that the truth will finally get out……..

Main EU political party PPE,wants a hot war with Russia asap:(this is not a joke,and PPE is not an extremist party but a ‘centre right’.Of course the usual suspects which are baltics countries,Poland,Germany and Roumania take the lead.

“It is clear that Washington is not run by idiots, no matter what is said on Russian talk shows or written on blogs. The United States understands precisely the situation it is in…

…the political elite who have emerged in the United States in the past 25 years have become accustomed to their status as the owners of the world. They sincerely don’t understand how anyone can challenge them.”

The first and second half of this paragraph are contradictory. The second half is more accurate. Clear-eyed realism is not consistent with the wistful and unreasonable sense of entitlement that harks back to a bygone era. The American elite suffers from toxic sentimentality and is impetuous enough to use its ‘overstayed’ military industrial complex before the broken petrodollar pump renders this alternative a nonstarter. So yes, there is a clash of milieus and ‘time-zones’. History’s arc is inevitable to which opposing forces can only act as accelerants or retardants. The US is the former, Russia is the latter. This means the next, more overt, phase of WW3 will happen sooner rather than later. Why? Because to the aggressor, placation and delay are silent weapons. European vassal-dom is a slowly collapsing floor.

American Empire and the American people are two entirely separate entities. The former can no longer buy the latter’s acquiescence with false, evaporating petrodollar prosperity. American Empire is preparing to fight a war on two fronts. Presently, it is debilitating the domestic theater with a blizzard of illegal immigration, upsetting job security and fomenting social confusion. It is also currently engaging in massive domestic military exercises. American power centers are profoundly unanswerable to American popular interests. This contradiction can no longer be disguised. When it can no longer be bridged, it will be enforced by an internal security apparatus. We’re in the early stages of America Bolshevism. By stark contrast, Russia is a post-Bolshevist beacon. I agree with the author. A Cold War is not nearly ‘war enough’ to contain these two worldviews, not at this advanced stage of history. We are not moving towards a wary, decades-long stand-off. America must precipitate WW3 while it still has the time. –nb

Add the Khazarian banking and central banking cartel to the CIA (who swallowed up the mob, the FBI, the global drug trade, all US executive branches, the Congress, Hollywood, the entertainment industry, all media, scores of churches, cults, NGOs, Google, Facebook, the internet and everything Nazi) and you end up with a monster that surpasses anything the world has ever seen (while being almost invisible, in-describable).

The wild card not mentioned here is the upcoming US election. As many have noted Obama seems to have little influence on foreign policy. If the current scenario of another Bush or Clinton presidency unfolds as predicted, the Nuland/Kagan team will still almost certainly being the one’s scripting the presidential teleprompter. They are not going to back down

If TPTB in the US decide, with valid reasons, that a real change of foreign policy direction is required, there may be hope for real peace.

I really enjoyed this piece as it reaffirms my views and thoughts about why Russia and Putin are behaving as they have/do.

I think the other important factor about Novorussia/The Donbass is that it is an example and symbol to other Ukrainians and regions of the “different life” available to them and how other regions can work outside of the Nazi Junta. As the country slowly collapses people will look East and realise their future lies elsewhere. Just look at the investment into Crimea – they got out – but others will see how much better the life is in Crimea too and the penny will finally drop.

I think another important factor not covered is China and how they will replace the US as the economic powerhouse to soften the collapse of the financial system in the US and EU. Hence why everyone jumped at the chance to join the AIIB.

Lets just hope the crazies and arrogance of the US doesn’t bring nuclear war because they just can’t accept they aren’t exceptional/ruling the world. I don’t think we can completely dismiss this possibility.

There are many interesting observations but I disagree with the conclusions:
Russian leadership has acted very reasonably in last 15 years and needs to do so for the next years. Short-sighted public opinion like accession of the Ukraine to Russia are not helpful, but much too expensive for Russia. I will explain my opinion, excuse me for the length.

Ukraine means borderland, I think equal to the german word “Mark”. These areas were rural, little developed. Marks are the areas for defending the more developed mainland. Ideally battles are fought there and do not reach the more developed areas, at least enemy offensive was slowed down. Peasants there have a tougher approach to live and are ready to fight, yet not very professional. In return they had more freedom, much space, little regulation, little or no taxes. Even in the middle of Europe, in former german Marks ( I live in one of them ) you can see and feel it.

The Ukraine has lost its function as a Mark in the late Russian Empire and the USSR and became highly developed. I have several Ukrainian friends who on the one hand appreciate their cossack heritage, but have no longer the knowledge nor the wish to live the simple life of a “borderlander”.

The conflict between the US and Russia make a new border in Ukraine. So Russia has the alternatives:
(a) Support a russian-friendly Mark on Ukrainian soil, or
(b) Make a mark on Russian soil with big chances of collapsing completely.
Sad to say, the Ukraine is becoming a borderland again, with all the human tragedies. But with Russia collapsing, there would be far more tragedies and – nobody to help at least parts of the Ukraine.
The best solution is to stop support for the corrupt Kiev regime immediatly, but for the reasons said above in this interesting analysis from Rostislav Ishchenko it will not happen in the near future.

To make things short I guess:
1. Obama says that Russia has to pay, but Russia is making the coup expensive for the West while sparing own resources.
2. Russia introduces evolved defense technology which is cheaper and simply works, instead of expensive western Hi-Tech not working (F-35 etc). As long as they demonize Russia as an enemy, they have to take up an arms race which is magnitudes more expensive for the west.
3. Russia tries to behave always correctly (because being observed) and will get sympathy sooner or later.
4. Russia keeps as many options as possible open for reaction to escalations. So they will recognize Novorussia only as a reaction to some very hostile step or agression from the US or its vassals (As in 2008 in the Caucasus).
5. They are waiting for Charkow and Odessa to rise and join Novorossia.

Certainly there will be uprisings and wars in Europe. The reasons are different IMO – Europe must be subdued and “equalized” in order to “unite” it. Russia is also just a tool in that game, or maybe the deep state is actually one of the gamers.

“Even those who in principle did not want to [leave Ukraine] are now leaving in fear for their lives… Opposition journalist and blogger Maxim Ravrebe moved to Moscow with his family… Fearing persecution, the renowned sociologist Eugene Kopatko left Ukraine… Victoria Shilova, political activist representing “Antiwar” movement, also left…

I left Kiev on February 28 [last year] leaving my million dollar property there and came to Moscow to start all over again because I didn’t want to be killed on a street. I expected that the power in Kiev would not be able to control anything.”

Rostislav Ischenko: Thanks for the appallingly spot on analysis. It looks a bit different from the belly of the beast, however, where I live. No, the shadow government in Washington is not stupid but ” they don’t understand how anyone can challenge them.” In psychology this is called cognitive dissonance if it is a mild case and if it stretches into ” no one can challenge them and win” then it takes on shades of being a megalomania-psychosis. Crazy people can be clever and very destructive.

Also, This is not a country where collective solutions happen easily and I fear for the worse. Maybe California which has to forge some workable way of rationing water ( my neighbors sneak out and water at night) due to the very severe drought will set the example for the future in the USA.

I can’t agree with this article. According to Ishchenko the US is bent on destroying every country that doesn’t bend to its will. As I see it that is the kind of behavior that individual madmen may show but that hasn’t been visible with any past superpower that was in decline.

Yes, the US has a tendency to neo-colonialistic behavior. But that is just because they can. If you are much more powerful than someone else the seduction to exploit that is always big.

The US has a long history of invading other countries. But until recently it was typically one country per presidential rule. Such an invasion seemed as much about telling other countries that there were limits to what the US considered acceptable behavior. Setting en example…

Since the end of the Cold War this has gotten out of hand. There were fantasies about the US ruling the world, you got Bush with his “axis of evil” and Obama turned out even more aggressive. This was a gradual process in which the ambitions grew and with that the kind of country that was targeted.

I see a direct relationship between the worsening of the relationship between the US and Russia and the improvement of the relationship between the US and Cuba, Iran and recently even Venezuela. The US is not bent on being in conflict with the rest of the world. It likes to pick its enemies and deal with them one by one.

So, no, if it loses Ukraine the US will not destroy the EU. Rather it will try what it did after 1945: build a Cold-War style alliance.

Putin is now in the unpleasant position to be America’s newest target. The US may lose, but so what? They lost in Iraq and Vietnam too. But just like Ukraine these were conflicts outside the US and the average US citizen hardly noticed. On the other hand the targeted nations suffered serious damage.

The big question is what will happen when Ukraine runs out of money and the population starts to protest. I expect that that will take quite some time as the level of oppression will grow first.

100% in agreement.
Barring total systemic collapse, the USA will try to build and lead Oceania. In fact, it’s been preparing that Plan B for almost 2 decades. Today, almost all the necessary legal tools are in place to execute Plan Orwell domestically, and if the EU commits its members to the TTIP, it will be lost for the next few decades. I think we will see a few more breakaways as TTIP signing comes nearer, but it would take an extraordinary turn of events for Europe to reject it outright.
The decades long “European Project” attempted to put some daylight between Europe and the US starting in the 50s. It reached its acme with the intro of the EUR. The US reaction to this was to poison the well by [a] helping the PIIGS hide their true indebtedness, and then [b] placing their men at key positions throughout the Euro financial structure to poison the banks, crippling their ability to deal with the inevitable consequences [a] would bring.
Death ‘n destruction, austerity, loss of human/political/civil rights, quality of life, truth, culture etc don’t play a role in this calculus except where and when they augment or diminish power.
Humpty Dumpty had it right: “The question is who is to be Master. That’s all.”

how nice it would be if Ukraine and Belarus joined Russia. Not that they need any more land but it doesnt matter. And maybe even Kazakhstan in some sort of a confederation or a loose union(actually thats what this Eurasian Economic zone is, so its already done)

Forgive me my friends, I cut and paste many of your comments and post on yahoo in order to give an truthful view and fight Porky’s (NATO) paid shills. Most of you can speak more elegant than I, My intention is to educate (for what that is worth) not to steal your thunder I have no agenda except the truth. I have educated quite a few (to my surprise). In my humble opinion the message from honest men and women are worth repeating . It is quite sickening to read the comments on Yahoo and social media after reading comments from people that still can think for themselves.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/yahoo
ya·hoo 1
(yä′ho͞o, yā′-)
n. pl. ya·hoos
An unrefined and often loud or disruptive person. See Synonyms at boor.
[From Yahoo, member of a race of brutes in Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift.]

quote “The Atlantic separates the United States from Europe. Even Britain could hope to sit it out across the Channel.”
ans-That is why without any cost to herself england is orchestrating this 3rd world war just like england plotted 1st and 2nd world wars to destroy Germany and Russia in one go. usa is just a slave hired muscle for english nation.

quote ” Therefore, their resource base is of paramount importance. That is exactly why Russia and the United States have been in a desperate competition for allies over the past year. Russia has won this competition\2
answer-not exactly. Russia by her action to please her anglosaxon enemies has deliberately sabotaged defense of her allies by refusing paid for s-300 to Iranian and Syria and even in syria Russia got temporary truce with no follow up and after removing syrian chemical weapon. do you think anglosaxon would have betrayed their allies at time when those allies would have bene useful to hurt the enemis?
it was in russian interests to keep anglos engaged and bothered in middle east rather than giving them an easy ride to destroy nations allied to Russians.
anglos have core of 5 evil eyes which have already grabbed the majority of land mass of the world(australia, canada anyone not to speak of usa -all controlled by evil england ) .i am not even counting Europe which had been infiltrated by English agents ever since mid 90s when Delore of france left European commission.

Has state dept. turned Gandhi or is it that they are in colluding with ISIS ?
Because British troops are too coward to fight on their own. the british bribed Taliban in Helmand not to attack british and go on making profit from opium manufacture.

This is brilliant! ISIL was created by the england and USA in Iraq in 2006, trained by the brutish spies and CIA in Jordan in 2012. They were visited by Senator McCain in May 2013, he met with their leader Al-Baghdadi. ISIL is currently funded by the US, Qatar and Saudi Arabia which is a british occupied colony in the middle east.. Every time Iraqi military gains the upper hand english controlled US ‘accidentally’ drops another arms cache in ISIL lap.
==================================
It is this stupid thinking of Russians especially the elites of Russia that Russia gets shafted easily by the west.
Russia does not want to help her allies because west would get annoyed?
It is the same west which does all this to destroy Russia by any means.
When will Russia wake up?
30 September 2010
Quote “Russia has thrown its defence ties with Iran on the altar of its “reset” with the United States. President Dmitry Medvedev last week imposed a sweeping ban on defence sales that goes beyond even the international sanctions on Iran and is likely to have a long-term negative impact on Moscow-Tehran relations.”

Quote” That said, Resolution 1929 contained no explicit ban on air defence systems and Mr. Medvedev’s decree went a step too far. Ironically, defending Moscow’s ban on S-300, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in the same breath, lambasted unilateral U.S. sanctions on Iran as being “ethically and morally wrong” and a “violation” of the U.N. resolution. … …”
14/04/2015.
and Russia has yet again back stabbed her ally in Yemen to please Saudis and anglos -what a loser Russia is!
Not a single resolution to the benefit of Russia has Russians been ever be able to bring on UN but they are the first to endorse or not veto any resolution which harms Russian allies.
The world watches this and that is why Russia will be left alone and then attacked without any ally-on all front by the same anglosaxon cabal and Saudi evil nation which Russia has always helped as opposed to her own ally.
It was not a missed opportunity but rather a deliberate act of cowardice this raise a lot of questions about Russia’s behaviour toward its allies in a moment when stakes are high and the Yemeni people is being bombed illegally by a coalition of rogue states.

Very disappointed of Russia because they did not veto this resolution which is in favor of the aggression against the Yemeni people and its army who are being bombed illegally from the sky by others countries. Iran, Syria, Yemen and other resistance countries should not trust Russia after this let down in UNSC today. Very
Very sad that Russia has let down its allies again and again.

Germany needs to liberate herself from NATO occupation and NATO brainwashing and I hope Russia will help her. A Russian-German military alliance would fantastic however I am doubtful of this occurring, at least this side of WW III.
It’s been quite obvious that US embassies serve as seeds of artificial dissent in the host countries, with all the support and money they funnel to various shady non-government organisations and influence groups
This, of course, is a nightmare to conniving cowards that populate the corridors of power in west-minister/London whose own over-rated military forces have never fared well against an equally armed and determined enemy. (Think Gallipoli amongst other Western debacles).

And when the Germans eclipsed the shoddy British with their low-quality primitive technology, what did the British do? Did they try to out-compete the Germans? No, they plotted to start an internecine war in Europe to burn everything the Germans built to the ground. And then to ensure that Germans never re-develop, the conniving British imposed Iraq-style conditions on the Germans,
Germany and Russia should be close to one another. It was a great misfortune that Kaiser Wilhelm II was deceived by his Gog & Magog advisors and fell foul of the dirty machinations of that British premier, Disraeli.

Like many, if not most, Russian geopolitical analysts, Mr Ishchenko is not factoring in a significant wild card in his analysis. The wild card is the current state of occupation that the West is under. Russians are mostly unaware that the “West” was taken over in 2001 (if not before) by neocon Ziofascists. Thus the majority of westerners are chaffing under the occupation and yearning for an opportunity to regain our sovereignty. We don’t want to do it via a nuclear war…but if we were presented with a viable alternative or series of options…AND if we had the leadership (that we now lack)…I believe the majority would move. Thus, Mr. Ishchenko doesn’t seem to understand that the vast majority of western citizens are allies of the Russians. How a war could be fought under these circumstances is a mystery to me. Strangely, many Americans yearn for an economic crash in the West, seeing that as a possible avenue of escape.

Well, indeed. What compounds the problem is that it is not a “wild” card, but a very essential one and the occupation of West is centuries old. It is the proverbial elephant in the room that seemingly everybody is trained not to see, even when it craps on you. It is a remarkable feat of “perception management”.
Information like this one http://www.politnavigator.net/evrejjskie-organizacii-ukrainy-rossiya-dolzhna-raspastsya.html are disregarded, people preferring to talk about “fascists”, “nazis”, “banderistas”, terms that in their minds cannot be associated with the elephant. The dog farted, not the elephant! Kolomoyski, Poroshenko are just “oligarchs” like all oligarchs (as if they were not of the same colour). Nuland an Kagan are just “crazy neo-cons” and their favorite Yats just a “scientologist”.

There’s a story supposedly told by Churchill about Stalin who had such power that when he entered a room people automatically stood up. Churchill said he resolved not to do that at a meeting where Stalin came in (perhaps Yalta). But when the time came and Stalin entered Churchill stood up with the rest as if moved by an immovable force.

The trouble with the comments on this Blog is that they are from a self-selective readership.

My natural inclination is to agree with most of the comments in support of the article.

However, I always try to think of the counter-argument.

I think America is far from down and out economically. I think the $US is far from down and out.

I think that China and Russia are outplaying America in a very long, century long, game of international chess. I also think the ruling elite of America, whoever they are, are far from stupid. Therefore, they know all this.

I think the American economy IS based on war, so therefore it seeks to further its objectives through war. I also think this is a hangover from a colonialist mentality. …. gunboat diplomacy.

China wants to sell its good. It needs therefore 2 crucial elements, in order to do so; peace and people that prosper [so there’s time and the means to purchase stuff].

I think one could compare the US and China to Mozart and Beethoven; Mozart makes music for this Friday [a quick buck], Beethoven for eternity.

FUKUS, in it’s infinite wisdom, revels in its believe of its own, almighty, super-duper, world dominance, projection project to such an extent, that they underestimate both Chin and Russia. And no matter whether you’re in a fight or doing business, never underestimate your opponent.

I’m with you, in believing that China’s in it for the long haul. As the wise wo/man once said, “Even the longest journey starts with a single step.”

Standing up in the presence of State officials is simply a matter of protocol and elementary diplomatic politeness. It is doubtful that Churchill was moved up by the sheer personality of Stalin and not by simple protocol. What may be in doubt is his alleged resolve to sit, which would have been an unnecessary affront to an ally. He was a Statesman and diplomatic rules were still in force. He might have been an old fox but besides being a statesman he was an aristocrat behaving according to the conventions of his time and not a hooligan like the present “statesmen” who gave Putin the cold shoulder treatment (when not “shirt-fronting” him).

wiz oz said
quote “being a statesman he was an aristocrat behaving according to the conventions of his time and”

churchill an aristocrat?
english never had aristocracy as we like to think in term of say Italian arsitrocracy ,of French noble families.
thieves graduated from piracy or slave trade -bought some land and start calling themselves aristrocracts.

Anglosaxon propaganda by war criminal Churchill types like Ergo: Stalin = Hitler. Funny how Stalin, who allegedly devoured infants for breakfast during 30 long years, could see his country’s population, wealth, and technical achievements grow so incredibly fast.

Propaganda says, he-Stalin-murdered civilians. He did(. They say, he smashed iron curtain-well Churchill did as most evil race are the anglos.. Well, Da. They say, he made wasted country into #2 or #1 industrial in 15 years. Those anglosp[ies just like those anglo spies to day in eastern Europe.). He left his son dying in Nazi captivity. And he won WWII. He surely did.
The House on the Embankment was home to Joseph Stalin’s children: His daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva lived in Apartment No. 37, while her brother Vasily Stalin’s home was accessed via the entrance next door. Another famous resident of the building was Alexei Stakhanov, the miner who mined record amounts of coal (14 times his shift quota), starting off the Stakhanovite movement. Nikita Khrushchev’s mother could often be found sitting on a bench outside the building, eating sunflower seeds.(can you imagine such elites mixing with minor in usa/uk )?

He was not an ordinary person.
Quot e: “Over half of Russians believe Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was the best head of state in the past century, followed by Bolshevik Revolution mastermind Vladimir Lenin and dictator JOSEPH STALIN, a poll by Levada Center has revealed….exactly ONE-HALF of Russians favor STALIN.”

Source:
rt. com/politics/brezhnev-stalin-gorbachev-s oviet-638/

“Evil Churchill”
Bengal Famine in 1943 saw off 5 to 6 million people.It is now clearly established that Churchill was responsible for actively b;locking relief to Bengal and thus was responsible for the genocide.Fist, the BRits seized all Indian-registered ships in 1939, at the start of WW2 for “strategic neccessities”. And then they used these ships to transport wheat to Britain from Argentina and build up by war’s end, a stockpile of 8 million tons of grain! While millions perished in Bengal . Churchill always said “there were no ships available”. Finally, the exasperated Americans under Roosevelt, offered to send grain to Bengal in their own ships. Churchill refused to permit it. He did not want the truth to come out at any cost.Then , in 1942 itself, the Brits adopted a policy of ric denial and boat denial in Bengal, because the Japs may come and should not use these resources. This was not genuine as the Brits had not supplied a single ant-aircraft gun in India. Gandhi and Congress on 10th July 1942, gave guidelines to the people of Bengal on how they should respond to rice denial and boat denial. “Demand compensatio before any seizure”. “If a village is fully surrounded by water, no boat will be surrendered”. It was very strong stand on a matter of real life and death. It recalls Martin Luther at Worms, “I take my stand . I can no other!” The Brits in internal cabinet notes in London called Gandhi an “enemy”. Entire Congress leadership was soon arrested. Brits went ahead and seized 40000 out of 60000 fishing boats in Bnegal. The hungry could not even fish.Brits also invaded homes of the poor and seized rice. When Congress leaders came out of jail in 1944, they shoiuld hve enquired into the Bengal famine. This was not done.The Brits had proved that our leaders could not protect us and they could kill millions with impunity

“Fifty percent of respondents said that they had a good attitude to Stalin, while 28 consider him an extremely negative persona in history. The amount of negative comments about Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin is three times as large as the number of positive opinions shared about them.
—– Political analyst Sergei Mikheyev explained in an interview with Pravda.Ru why the Russians think of Leonid Brezhnev as the best ruler of the 20th century.

“The reason is quite simple: during Brezhnev’s stay in power, life was quiet and calm. “During the Soviet period, Brezhnev’s rule was the calmest and most predictable one. I believe that this is a very serious merit of Brezhnev.
“In general, however, life under Brezhnev was better off than in many other countries of the world. Many people say now that the Soviet Union was one of the worst countries to live in. This is nothing but an outright lie. === But in general, the Soviet Union was a country with one of the most developed economies, one of the most developed social systems and one of the highest levels of life,” said Mikh
================================
==========================

All mentions of the Saxons during the 4th and early 5th centuries referred to pirates and looters in Gaul and Britain-and this anglosaxon constitutes the core of what is called English nation which never left piracy and thievery in its short history.
==========================

Russia would be foolish to take lightly the danger of england-sooner that country is neutered and sorted out better it is for the humanity to rid of that pestilence .
Josef Stalin during Great Patriotic war said “the Americans and British will fight the Nazi’s to the last drop of Russian blood”

Winston Churchill’s ‘bid to nuke Russia’ to win Cold War – uncovered
in secret FBI files
The British love gold but would not accept it for trade with Russia,only grain,creating another ‘famine’, the Trading with Russia Act of 1932 in conjunction with other factors,created the tragic Holodomor.

Just like they created the Irish famine of 1848 in which the elite British made hunting game,or even fishing,illegal,leaving the Irish with only a single variety of potato to subsist on,All the while exporting massive quantities of food to England.

The British in India contrived ‘famines’ utilizing the monsoon cycles to starve their only competitor for power,the Maharatha Empire,clan and yeoman farmer foundation.

Some 85-90 million people were starved to death in 150 years, while Britain was exporting vast quantities of food for profit,and since the British were kicked out? not one famine in 67 years.

The long game stage 2…..
In 1945 ‘Operation Unthinkable’ was proposed to destroy the Soviet Union,but shelved.

Instead Harry Truman approved the creation of the CIA in 1947 with the clear intent of making use of the Ukrainian Nationalists to infiltrate the Soviet Union and continue the war,which they did.

After the Ukies were defeated the survivors and their families were taken to the US and Canada,just as the Cubans who opposed Fidel were set up in Florida.
==============

The USA is nothing more than a continuation of the British empire and Anglo-Saxon colonialism run from the centre of evil the parasite island england with the help of 5 evil eyes .
The English parasite race certainly are a bloodthirsty lot, more than their cousins, the Americans.

The progressive “antiwar” rag, The Guardian, shows its true militarist colors, no better than conservative rags like The UK Telegraph.

If Mrs ‘F***Europe’ Nuland can predict who’ll be Ukraine’s PM in 2014,
back in November, 2013, it’s quite obvious how [most] things get “elected” around
the globe UNDER DICTATORSHIP OF ANGLOS CONTROLELD SO CALLED DEMOCRACIES.
A crap british spy journalist wrote about Ukraine crisis that “{ wrote that “Putin is increasingly seen as a reckless gambler who calls
bluffs and takes risks, and is inscrutable, paranoid and unpredictable.” }

Whereas the Brits are carefull GAMBLERS with the lives of the Ukranians. Do not take risks as OTHER PEOPLE pay the price. Not Paranoid as they very carefully analyse how to cause MAXIMUM DAMAGE to opposition, whether they are masquerading as friends ( Greece AND Cyprus) or NOT.
=================

You see it was a british English coup but blame was put on CIA coupe and not on English parasites.—“ Governor General John Kerr’s CIA coup to oust Gough Whitlam, the sitting Prime Minister of Australia in 1975,—“
Ruling elite in UK/US wants to see Russia and Germany/France to destroy one another in WW3. That mission was incomplete during WW2.

Very Interesting, Thank you! If only more people could understand your analysis, it might serve as a useful supplement to the Media’s constant barrage of distraction, whose reporting just feeds the hate thirsty masses who only know violence as the answer to resource allocation. I would only add that the Russian Society have a higher source of resolve then just Putin, and that is devotion to Christian virtues. Something that has lost much significance in the USA through internal deceit by Controlled Media and education.

This is not a “brilliant analysis”, but highly naive (to avoid the word “crap”).
The whole article seems to be based on the presumption that, let’s say, within 10 years the US and the EU will starve to death, while Russia will prosper no end. The GDP of the US alone is about 8 times higher than Russia’s. Now this is not the only measure of political and military power, but neither is it the worst. Deal with it: Yes, the balance of powers is shifting, but the dominance of the US and its vasalls will not end tomorrow, and not in 10 years. Future economical and financial crises will hit Russia as hard (or even harder) than the “west”.
Europe will never orientate itself towards Russia – at least not as long as Russia decides to stay orthodox and a “non-western” society. It was fun to use Russia as a cheap energy supplier, and to sell expensive goods in return (as Russia is still not able to produce high quality consumer goods on its own), but that’s it. European media are totally anti-russian (it is still “evil, ugly, primitive old Ivan” all over the place). The idea that europeans could fraternise with Russia is ridiculous; propaganda will never allow this. Really, guys: you think much too good of Europe (as Europe thinks much too bad about Russia).
The “BRICS” are not friends, not even allies. They cooperate if the see a short-term profit, but are also just too happy to deal with the US and the EU on other occassions. OTOH, Europe is a 100% vasall to the US, and now the EU has become even more important than the NATO in this respect (example: the NATO member Turkey does not care about the sanctions, but “neutral” EU member Austria is bound absolutely to the US-dictated EU foreign policy).
China is rising quickly, but apart from investing absurd amounts of money abroad (one cannot buy friends, anyway), it is still not a major player in global politics. And don’t be stupid: once China will develop a profile in global politics (probably 10, 15 years from now) and will be able to produce their own high-class weaponry, the US will again start to destabilize it (funding NGOs and “democracy”, promoting rebellions in west-china, targeting its [export-dependant and therefore vulnerable] economy, starting wars in the neighbourhood…).
Regarding the Ukraine: The Russians simply fucked it up. Since the indenpendency, they “owned” about 50% of the country for a quarter of a century (the Ukraine has always been 50% pro-west/pro-east), now it is more like 80% pro-west, 20% pro-russian (if not less). The shared technical know-how (mainly military products) is now fully acessible for the west. Donetsk and Luhansk are virtually nothing (just look at the map, and no-one cares for the ancient industry there), while the Ukraine itself will now become a NATO member (and EU-associated, if not a full member); it will also become an US-american military base, and it will sell its fertile soil and its shale gas cheaply to Europe. The Russian obviously are still hoping for a federalization of the Ukraine (where a veto by the pro-russian provinces could prevent NATO membership), but to this end they would need more support in the eastern Ukraine. As it looks now, the Donbass will just become another completely isolated Transnistria (and disappear from the mass media), while the “official” Ukraine (95% of the area) will go 100% west.

The US adds lots of things to the GDP that should be subtracted. China’s investments in building SE Asia and heavy rail, pipelines, canals, fast rail, etc. will buy the kind of friends that count. Folks who will mutually profit with you. Saying China doesn’t count in global politics is absurd.

The Ukraine is not 80% anti-Russian. Yanukovich wouldn’t have won if that were true. Besides, maybe they will be 80% anti-EU/US soon. Extreme propaganda and fantasies collapse extremely. And Russia will provide some aid, something that the US won’t. Your point is valid that the Kremlin screwed up, but the West is totally screwing up the game after the coup while the Kremlin is playing it reasonably well.

The BRICS and others are Russian allies in going to a world not dominated by the Anglo-American establishment. That is the whole battle.

As for brainwashed Europeans, they are everywhere. Even here. Russian elites have always been stupid in their love of Europe. Somethings never change.

Big media are no way representative of the sentiment in Germany. More the regional media.
Sentiments of the uninformed are like this (tendencies):
– Eastern Europe including Russia is poor, people there steal much (from us, esp. the Polish)
– They are in some ways the bad guys (we learn this not from newspapers and TV, but from Hollywood!)
– US and allies are the good guys (Hollywood)
– We can’t live without US+NATO (west and south)
– We could do without them (older people from former GDR)
– Something is wrong with the US (Snowden, Assange, etc.)
– We don’t give anybody money: neither the Greeks (we hate them for wanting this and our hate eventually will destroy the EU) nor US for expensive shale gas

Informed people know:
– Trade surplus with US is 10 times higher than with Russia, so leadership decided to sacrifice exports to Russia, but not the cheap imports
– If the US goes too far, there can be a 180° turn in German policy: Willy Wimmer adviced Helmut Kohl to skip training with the US, because they wanted a simulated authorization to A-bomb Dresden; Gerhard Schröder skipped Iraq war and started North-stream pipeline with Russia after recognizing that Brzeziński plans are still developed.

Russia is a relatively small country in terms of population and GDP. Oil and gas gives it some disproportional power. But such power is hollow: look at Saudi Arabia. The best strategy for Russia is not to claim superpower status as that will only exhaust it.

Re Ukraine: just like the West Russia has been too much focussed on its own interests (getting a friendly government installed) instead of getting the country out of the doldrums. That was a short sighted policy. In the long term it is much more important for Russia to see Ukraine prosperous than to see it have a friendly government (that can change with the next elections).

Well, IMHO Ishchenko’s argumentation (again) is much to … complicated. Nobody put’s into question that Malorossia, Novarossia and Bessarabia belong to Russia – nobody. When someone got crazy when it comes to belonging to Russia and turn into a Nazi, you can be 100% sure he turns into a Nazi because he (subliminal) knows Malo-/Novarossia (and more) belongs to Russia – that’s all. And, that (turning crazy) is even true for people from outside or the other side fo the Atlantic ocean. Especially if these other people experience their own decline at the very same time.

So, Malorossia/Kiev belongs to Mother Russia. Ukraine doesn’t. Ukraine is just a crazy idea of crazy people. So, if Ischenko is right, than Putin is wrong to wait for the (whole) Ukraine, which doesn’t exist. Historically it’s Kievan Rus/Malorossia and (very much) later Novarossia. Along with Novarossia comes Bessarabia and some times later the Baltics. Baltics are special: Some centuries ago Russia bought the Baltics from Sweden (Russia never conquered the Baltics, Russia instead traded the Baltics) paying with pure gold. The amount of gold nowadys would be worth 550bln $. If the Baltics want to get autonomous they just would have to pay the bill. I’m pretty sure Russia will accept the gold.

Caucasus? Hm, please have a look at the following map/globe. All what is neccessary to separate Eurasia from the West is Azerbaijan. I’m not quite sure Azerbaijan really belongs to Russia? The real name is Arran (Azerbaijan is the name of a region in nowadays nothern Iran). Maybe Arran belongs (more) to Iran? Nevertheless, Eurassia looks ready to live without (western) Europe and of course without any Anglo-Saxons. They simply don’t need them (anymore). Whatfor? Just for another (civil) war? Russia will simply turn to the east, doing business with India, China, even Mongolia and of course Vietnam an Corea. Putting some S-500 (yep, 500) and T-50/PAK and of course (a future robotic version of) famous T-14/Armata in place / to work and Wanja will be ready even for a long winter sleep.

And, please dear Wanja, don’t get afraid when waking up and Europe is still alive. Europe will always stay alive (’til the end of the days). Almost the whole world doesn’t understand what’s different with Europe – even most Europeans don’t know about. Again, please have a look on the/a globe. The mystery of Europe is it’s diversity, and not it’s unity. This diversity is the result of the relation between (length) of coast line and landmass (m²). The diversity of (little) Europe landscapes has always been the stimmulation for different cultures and languages (please remember, in the beginning it’s been one single language all over Europe). And, the diversity of landscapes always presented a hideway in case of emergency (for example in case of a civil war). Compare Europes landscape(s) with … the steppe in Mongolia, desert of arabian peninsula, outback of Australia, endless jungle in Amazonia, even the monotony of the Midwest and of course the same monotony of Siberia …).
Thus, Europe will suffer the “turnaround” of Russia, and more, will suffer a lot when the declining Anglo-Saxons will try to kill them all prior to their own “death”. And of course the people in the middle of western Europe (Germany) will suffer the most. That’s what happens all the time since many, many centuries. In a way they (Europeans) are already used to it. Think of Thirty Years War (Germany for many decades looked like Lybia today), think of Hundred Years’ War (France, Jeanne D’Arc), think of Eighty Years’ War (Netherlands) …

What many people really fear most, not only in Europe / North America: Germany (remember Friedman/Stratfor) is very, very much specialized in recovering after beeing devastated. After WW2 it took Germany (as a state still nowadys completly disintigrated) five years to regain breath and thereafter ten years to be again the 1st economy in Europe (mid 60th). Of course the Anglo-Saxon pigs will not keep off to devastate Germany again – the only good will be: thereafter the Empire of Chaos will no longer exist – but Germany will recover, like the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and so on. Maybe a good chance to join the Eurasian Union then? All in all another point Ischenko is wrong: of course Europe will burn down. It does so since thousands of years. As far as i remember Moscovites (1812) are used to burn down, too?

While Ishchenko does a decent job spelling out the Russian geopolitical strategy – IE: defusing the ZPC/NWO by peaceful means, as opposed to warfare and direct confrontation, he fails at “the big picture”. IE:

These players are the United States and Russia.

No they are not. It is the western multinational capitalist oligarchy (what I call the ZPC/NWO – the zionist power configuration*/new world order) vs the Eurasian Union and the rest of the world which have maintained some independence of the ZPC/NWO. See:

As one can see, the ZPC/NWO oligarchy is international. Reducing this global conflict to a simplistic USA vs Russia cartoon ignores the extent of the problem the ZPC/NWO presents the world with. It also fails to provide an understanding of what the cure will need to be. I wont just be neutralising the USA, I can guarantee that.

It is also clear very clear Ishchenko has very little understanding how power works in western countries under ZPC/NWO control:

For the ruling elite in the United States (not so much the business class but the government bureaucracy), to go from being a country that decides of the fate of inferior peoples to one that negotiates with them on an equal footing is intolerable.

That is a total fail. The government bureaucracy are basically the upper level management of the ZPC/NWO “corporation”, as they run their “world” the same way they run their corporations. The government bureaucracy has very little independent power, they irritate their oligarch owners and they are out, or 6 feet under, depending on the level of disobedience.

By Bot Tak: “That is a total fail. The government bureaucracy are basically the upper level management of the ZPC/NWO “corporation”, as they run their “world” the same way they run their corporations. The government bureaucracy has very little independent power, they irritate their oligarch owners and they are out, or 6 feet under, depending on the level of disobedience.

I stopped reading after that latter quote.”

I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and putting aside our past clashes, I totally agree with you in this instance. For anybody to even vaguely imply that the “business class” doesn’t run the US, its government does, is plain idiotic at best, or utterly disingenuous at worse. How can I take anything else this guy is saying seriously after that?

Corporate America runs the show, and in waaay too many instances; they are in government! Plenty of astute political analysts have said time and time again; the US doesn’t have a foreign policy, they have a business [and financial] model they enforce around the world via the illegitimate use of force and subversion. As it was indisputably exposed in John Perkins’ landmark book: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.
Haven’t this guy in the OP heard of a “revolving door” marry-go-round of governmental positions and the business world? I mean, this is like, modern politics 101, kiddy stuff, really.

Very interesting but also very optimitisc.The US are pure evil,they will try anything(including bombing Putin palace if needed).Don’t expect anything from ‘vichyistes’ vassals from the EU,even less from the baltic/Polish gang.The US don’t want a war in western Europe because it is still their main market(reason for the tafta,to put 500 millions europeans in economic jail).I don’t see the EU collapsing(unfortunately)they even manage to buy Syriza(which is collapsing today in a survey).They will not accept the euro to collapse even if it is a proven total failure.And if the euro does not collapse,the EU will continue to survive.Merkel is blackmailed by the US,they have files against her,everybody knows that.Hollande or Sarkozy again in 2017,have no balls and are(for sarkozy cia agent).All the EU cretins crowd in Brussels is managed from the US embassy/Nato.
The only thing which can make politicians think twice,is immigration,refugees…imagine millions of Ukies arriving in western europe,where there is already almost 40 millions people unemployed.
That is one topic RF should be more proactive versus Hollande and Merkel:do you want millions of ukies refugees arriving in your countries?Do you want terrorism risks,arms,mafia etc?

Very interesting, and I am packing my bags (in principle) and dusting off my Russian language textbooks and tapes.

My main question concernes this statement:
“But if the United States manages to extend the conflict to the EU (and it will try)”

Ishchenko doesn’t say (I didn’t see it) what concrete form t his exteions of the conflict into the EU would take. How can the USA extend the conflict into the EU? Does Ishchenko suppose through actual fighting of some kind on the ground, or via economic destabilization of some kind or some kind of political sabotage, or blackmail to get, say, Germany to take steps against . . . whom? What are the scenarios here?

The average American is not for wars of aggression. This is why the Washington establishment must work so hard, with its corporate news networks, to conjure false narratives, stage false flags & basically terrorize the population into believing that “they hate our freedom.” Thus, on the one hand, I strongly believe that Americans do not have a heart for a war with Russia, even with all the propiganda. On the other, I fear a false flag of some sort, consistent with the terror the establishment has used since 9-11 to generate support for its sociopathy and the ongoing bombardment of the public with propiganda aimed at turning the American people against Russia. Is it possible to prevent this?

Another truth is that the American people would also benefit from peace beyond the gratification of peace for peace’s sake. Although the full repercussions have not began to set in, Americans are enslaved by debt skyrocketed by the defense industry and banks via the federal reserve. A collapse of the economy offers a space through which the US people might throw off these things & the people connected to them. This is why the Washington establishment has spent our tax dollars (or credit) to build a police state, including militarized bureaucracies, & has whittled away the Constitution. The economy is crashing, & Washington will turn on both the American people and the world to hang on to their authority. As economist Martin Armstrong points out, the US economy will likely begin a free fall by the end of the year, and the people will come out either liberated or beset with totalitarianism. It depends on how it is navigated.

Another thing to think about is the internal dissent regarding the relationship between the American people and government. There is dissent within nearly every demographic toward government, but an effective unified action is impeded by dissent among the American people, themselves, mostly petty. This is what happens when a two party system props itself up by caricaturing and demonizing the opposition even as the very same characters who try to mold a certain consciousness among people abroad– namely Soros, Gates and Rockefeller, fund research and teaching grants to produce certain social narratives. I fear that America will fall into its own civil war in a down turn. How would that fit into the model discussed?

Fascinating but… Neither China, nor BRICS will dare to openly fight alongside Russia against the U.S. And as shaky as the American economic system is, most countries prefer to deal in dollars and not rubles (or yen or even marks). And everyone understands that, as unpredictable as the Americans are, a world without America is even more problematic. So if the shooting actually starts the Russians will be on their own very quickly. And one should never underestimate the value high-tech weaponry (and intelligence gathering, etc.) has. True, MiG-23s can land in rough fields, but if they can’t see what’s shooting because their radars are limited then they will be shot down before they can land on rough terrain. Russia has an extremely long border to guard and several of their neighbors would not mind trying to take abite of the Bear, if feasible.

Few countries have ever benefited from Russia although they fear it still – and one can’t build a world economic empire by fear alone. Obama may not be a likable fellow but he’s shrewd and efficient – he just poached Cuba away from Russian influence and American cargo ships in Havana next spring will not be met by Russian gunboats. It’s fair to say this world doesn’t seem big enough for the Eagle and the Bear – but the Bear is surrounded by more enemies than the Eagle – Canada does not hate the U.S., nor does Mexico, really. A war of attrition is not likely to affect the U.S. beyond its own inefficiencies, and I don’t see for the life of me how Russia can possibly interdict American commerce at sea if neither Brazil nor India will send any submarines to keep them in check. Do any of you envision such a scenario? So although much of the analysis is superb it is also retrospective and cannot foresee a scenario in which Russian military and economic and scientific and ethical power will even hold its own, much less challenge the world.

Japan is not going to let the fleet from Vladivostok roam the Pacific even if the Americans don’t ask them to, and the multitude of islands around the world where Americans keep B-52s and other such tidbits have more beaches than there are Russian soldiers available to take them one by one. Like Hannibal, Putin could go out in a blaze of glory and cause much damage – but only if he used nukes. And the American SSBNs are probably part of the strategy that may reinforce the neocon dream of two strikes and you’re out. I don’t say the moral corruption in the wider West is not growing on account of all the reprobates ruling them. But the hundreds of people who drown trying to reach Europe – or the U.S. for that matter – prove that most countries look up to the Americans as saviors (rightly or wrongly) and not to Russia. So how is that going to benefit Russia?

A reality check is necessary here because resentment over the school bully is not going to be enough to beat him up and remove him from the courtyard. And his “friends” will probably wait out after school ends and nothing good will come of that. Sometimes countries, like people, have to lick their wounds and accept ignominy; Germany did it more recently, France not long before that and Greece muscle hasn’t been much admired lately except at the Olympic Games’ Men’s gymnastics competition. The Americans will not go into the Bear’s cave because that would be bad for global warming and business. But they just might post some guards at the entrance and if the Bear wants to come out it will have to do it through some other crack in the mountain. I loved the article, I wish there were more like it and the methodical thinking of its author. But this is playacting.

Putin actually had a chance to develop his country some years back – Medvedev was the economic “brains” who did hint, on occasion, at possible ideas. But nobody took him seriously – but economics is still the foundation of any great society. If I were Putin, I’d stop the grandstanding, put Medvedev, or somebody like him, in charge of the economy, and spend the next decade looking for the guy who can keep the thing going when he’s ready to sign off. History plays itself out over centuries and all-out wars have one winner and some salted soil on the other side.

If, by 2025, the Indians and Brazilians prefer to buy Russian-made passenger jets and Russian computers with a Russian-code operating system and can show capitalists a fluent and growing commercial system with Vietnamese entrepreneurs changing batteries of Russian-made smartphones for American tourists in Sevastopol, then one can say Putin has check-mated the American Queen (Hillary?! God save us!) and we can finally peg the 457 and 401K savings to the ruble. But the Chinese did exactly that while their Northern neighbors stood still. Where was China in 1999 and where are they now? Well, they’re assembling iPads – like the one I’m typing this on – and mine is 5 years old and still running.

As for the Europeans, well, they’re not going to invade Ukraine with tanks, nor will they turn the hungry Ukrainians back even if there’s a million of them. They will, however, continue to work hard (some of them, anyway) to make the Audis and Citroens which, when sold, pay the salaries of the assembly plants – and Greek debts, too. Without talking about nuking cities. And they will probably fix Libya, too, eventually. I could be wrong, you know… But I think those 700-800 souls at the bottom of the Meditteranean would agree that Moscow is not where they wanted to live – and the Kremlin is not where they were headed. Don’t think African migrations are sustainable forever in Paris or Koln. But I’m getting weary of hearing how accurate those balistic missiles that Putin keeps testing are. Somehow, hanging out with a bare-chested Vladimir seems as much fun as having a hamburger with the Syrian “freedom fighters.” The Poles, The Baltics, the Czechs, none of them want anything to do with Russia, anymore. You got to wonder why that is. You can’t make someone love you while holding a gun to their head and threatening to nuke them all the time. Especially not Hillary. Having just said that, I’m almost tempted to… talk to Vlad… Nyet.

Read the start of your post, reminds me of the British attitude to the Japanese in 1940? The British sent a couple of cruisers around Malaya to show the flag and British empire might. Japanese planes sunk them in very short order.
Singapore fortress?
Same thing is happening again now.
Hubris.

oh dear, what is your point at all this algaravia?
Perhaps would it be finding out still great virtues in the oppressor.
Putting wonder eyeglasses on the blind. That we will prefer the green bills just because the grey ones have not yet received enought PR worldwide?
Money is money, dear and a winner is a winner.
Time will come soon when you and i and our both political leaders will have to put their bets on some side. And the horse catwalk brilliance wont convince them anylonger.

@Milos
so you want Russia to go after the good old days of angloamerican stooges like Yeltsin and medvedev !
not going to happen. usa and england need to predate because on their own they produce nothing ,are bankrupt, they are nothing. but when resistance to them will grow they will die out .

Dr. Martin Luther King said the U.S. is “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world,” and his is words still hold true, today. “Complicity, complacency and pervasive apathy among the U.S. public allows these crimes to go on in perpetuity.”

The United States government is, by far, the greatest violators of human rights in the world today. This fact has held true dating back to the US’s illegal and ill-fated conception. This fact especially holds true in regard to Euro-America’s treatment of people of color, the globe over.

Judging by the pics that just appeared in the comments, your site has just been hacked Saker. I guess you must be touching on a tender spot and the powers that be are hitting back. Livens up the site :)
Keep up the good work.

OKAY Peter is this you posting now as Anonymous?
You solved the problem yourself. It is coming from the hotel wifi in Guangzhou and not affecting anybody else (I missed your saying about the hotel). Try it for yourself. Paste the full URL into a new tab, then delete as much or as little as you want from the end. You keep getting the same image as long as you leave the jpg and only remove to the ? (in this part of the link jpg?) The URL you are left with is on the same net range that you yourself are posting from.

The apparent redirect to Gravatars is fake. It is really very cleverly done — it is hooking into the WordPress API that accepts Gravatars from that company, and feeding the porn image into it.

Try to post without using your email address — that may be causing an attempt to look up Gravatars, leading to the misdirection. Please do use your name though so we know it’s still you. Do NOT download malwarebytes from that location. Do it when you get home and run it, just in case, though I think you’re safe enough.

Send Saker another email with DON’T OPEN THE OTHER EMAIL in subject line, as I don’t think he’d be impressed with the image. Best send screenshots to us mods, but attach a warning.

I had this problem a while, but instead of porn ads, advertisements of all kinds came out that prevented me read anything. It turned out to be a virus that hijacks the start menu ( Istart.websearches ). My antivirus (Bitdefender) had nothing to do with this. I had to research on the web and at the end I could get rid of it by downloading several antivirus and cleaning my computer on. These were, Adwcleaner, Malwarebites, Junkware removal tool, and Ccleaner between others.

websearches style of virus will do that; start menu hijackers can be cleaned manually if you know how, they’re no big deal. Peter has an injection from the hotel wifi, it’s from the same IP range that he’s posting from but it should not affect his computer itself. Malwarebytes, CCleaner and Adwcleaner are the best, in that order. Ordinary “anti virus” programs will usually let them through.

it’s on the Wifi, Peter is getting it on his hotel Wifi, too. I can’t see anyone benefiting from it, ie they can’t make money from it. But posters of porn get their kicks from imagining they’ve shocked or scared the recipient. This was just an innocent topless girl; some I’ve seen “posted for fun” make you want to wash your eyes out with bleach. (Not on this blog I might add, even the porn is classy here ).

A country not mentioned that I believe is a swing player is Germany. Basically the US/EU and Russia are at a standoff in the Ukraine, with time on Russia’s side – which is another reason Russia wants peace. Germany may yet be a swing player, wanting better business ties with Russia, and a US/Nato neutralizer – under no circumstances could I see Germany entertain an attack against Russia.

I thought it might be useful for some of us to see this. I surely understand why people hat the Nazis and Hitler – well, e have been told to do so for a long, long time – and I surely and most definitely understand and fully sympathise with the Russian People about WW2 – The Great Patriotic War. How brave ans strong they were – and brave! It is incredible.

All the same, we can only be helped and better informed if we look into the way that Hitler got Germany out of the horrible mess it was in at the end of WW1.

I also had a review on this specific subject too , isabella.
and what the terrible monster Adolf did it in a span of practically two years: rebuilding the German economy from nearly chaos. And, further, despite “sanctions” from Versailles…
This has nothing to do with his nazi pride,views,racism and hatred ideology. It´s a matter of different nature.
It was a way they chose… and it fully flattens any neolib or chicago shoolism on (macro) economic management.

and how could you, my friends, properly describe the statesmanship of Bad vlad?
for me a mix of Bismarck and FDR. Does it basicaly & historically fit into that?
I figure that Milos did not stick well to one Ishchenko´s key words:
that the whole struggle can only END with a strategic victory of one side. A strategic, geostrategic win.
And this is compatible but not necessarily identifies with a military WIN.
Which unroots and changes all his reasoning by its fundamentals.
and besides i guess that Russia will win both ways.

Very nice piece, but somewhat simplified. Surprisingly enough, there is no mention of China in this story, and the China is the key player and the country that is considered by the US as the greatest threat. Majority of the US military resources are stationed around China while in Europe, expect for the 6 thousand men strong unit patrolling the Russian-NATO border, the number of troops is decreasing.

The relation between China and the UStwo is so economically and financially intertwined that none can do much about it without paying the high price. The US is dependant on China as much as a patient in coma is dependent on respiratory machines, while Chinie doesn’t want to see its 3 trillion US$ reserve being depleted by the FED’s polices.

Furthermore, it is questionable how much Russia can count on its new allies. The biggest problem for China and Russia is the geopolitical paradigm effectuated by the Breton Woods agreement, and which says that once the US is removed from the throne someone else has to take it, and right now neither China nor Russia is ready or capable of doing it. The paradigm has to be changed, the paradigm of the globalised world ruled by a single power. The might be the greatest legacy of Putin to the world and to the Russians, killing the Empire and its capitalist ideological modus.

However, on that front both the Russian and the Chinese are sided with the US. For me to see, we have some turbulent years ahead here in EU, and very likely the disintegration of the EU (the Goldman Sachs’s Greek asset was probably designed as a political leverage against the EU, as a kind of safety valve controlled by the US) but in the long term we may not see anything new except another episode of The Gangster’s chronicle with a new gang in town rising to the power at the expanse of the former.
However, what I fear is the reaction coming out of desperation. Everyone knows that the time is not on the US side, and it might get nervous and irrational. Once they apply the red code things go boom….

America is dependent on China in the same way that a vampire is dependent on the necks of its victims, whose blood it sucks.

Your characterization of America’s Fiat Dollar system is disingenous, as it completely sweeps under the rug the parasiitic nature of the dirty Dollar and ultimately of the American way of life itself.

Because of the Fiat Dollar, American is able to gobble up massive amounts of goods and services from the rest of the world, which it “pays” for with the toilet paper Dollar. Because of the Fiat Dollar, USA can “borrow” money from other nations like China that it will *never* repay.

In short, the American Dollar system is one in which the United States extracts *imperial tribute* from the world in all but name.

That is the dirty secret that most American apologists, including people here, attempt to spindoctor away.

And regarding Europe, Europeans are crime partners of the United States politically, economically, militarily, ideologically, and civilizationally.

America is nothing more than a European colonizer empire. It is the misbegotten spawn of the parasitic Western system that has dominated this planet for the past 500 years since 1492: European-American imperalism.

It shouldn’t be surprised that Europe sides with America in all their cirminal wars from the War of Terrorism to Libya to Ukraine.

Europe and America are all part of the same criminal enterprise called “Western Civilization.”

Anonymus, I didn’t provide any characterization of america’s fiat dollar. But I do agree that it basically comes down to exchanging paper for real goods and is rightfully considered as one tenth everyone has to pay to the empire. This however, is danger inherent in every fiat currency. It can at any point become a means of committing a fraud. The EURO, Deutche mark, Renmimbi are not free form this inherent flaw of every fiat currency.

The USA got away with it for so long thanks to the US air force (Petro dollar is actually Tomahawk dollar), but also thanks to others willing to become partners in crime at any opportunity given. This applies to Russia and even more to Chine, as much as to the EU.

It is first when Russia was assigned different role in the global Empire, the one Putin along with oligarchs loyal to him didn’t like (the one Yeltsin was contend with), that he started rebelling and along with China began pushing for the reformation of the Empire, but not for its abolition.

China on the other hand is waltzing with the US, a partner that gave birth to it some 30 years ago, and they cannot just let go of its partner, nor are the ready to do it. They prefer to be cheated and take phony money and pass it on to others (excactly like Putin, who still trades oil in dollars) as long as they can gain something from it. They are into this cheating almost as much as the US, since they know that they are acquiring tangible resources (land, commodities, energy) in Africa and S.America with this phony money, and as long as they can get away with it, they will use it.

It is not easy to get rid of 2 billion dollars in reserve or to convert them to SDR without the US. At least not without starting a major conflict. The US understands its position, but it’s not ready to relinquish the throne and say, OK, game over, we give up.

My worry is that we are heading for the global political vacuum, which can be dealt with in the old fashioned way – by world war. In order to avoid the vacuum the Breton woods paradigm has to be abandoned and replaced by a new one.

SDR and the new, reformed IMF may sound promising, but I’m pessimist in this regard. I’m worried that the elites rushed a bit in abandoning the role of the national states, since there still national states that cannot be integrated in the global empire. Russia is the best example. It is too big, holds on too many resources, it has a very resilient and stubborn population that cannot be reached in the same way as others, and it is extremely well armed and willing to fight.

A truly global empire has to dismantle states like Putin’s Russia since it is the main obstacle, a sort of restricted zone, and the Empire doesn’t like to be restricted.

If this happens the Russina will lose Russia, but the rest of the world will be unaffected or perhaps even better off (recall Yeltsin era). If Russia stays on its current course, the US will find itself in lot of trouble, since its hands are tied by its waltzing partner, China, with all this american oil flowing under the Syberia…hm

I have all sympathy for Russians and Russia, but I see no reason to rejoice about its actions as long as I’m not convinced that it is fighting the Empire, but only for the privileged place within the Empire.

If the latter is the case, then Russia, just like China, notwithstanding its official foreign policy, is actually aspiring for the equal partnership in crime, and the elite led traditionally by the British crown and European aristocrats (along with wealthy Jewish and American families) is not willing to take the Russian bear into its company and recognize it as an equal. Right now I believe this to be the case.

You’re not nearly as clever as you fancy yourself. It’s pretty obvious your “arguments” are essentially driven by the desire to discredit any actually existing opposition to European-American rule of planet–holding them to an impossible criteria of purity that you know very well no country in the world could pass.

It’s just a variation of the “our opponents are no better” or the “they are all in cahoots” memes that many supposed sympathizers here increasingly resort to.

Your comments also willfully ignore the various moves that both Russia and China have concretely made to divert and disengage from the American economic order in general and Dollar hegemony in particular. These include the Eurasian Union, BRICS, AIIB, Silk Road projects, and the process of De-Dollarization in general with currency swaps and the use of national currencies *other* than the dirty Dollar in trade.

These developments have been amply documented both here and in the alternative media, so it’s curious that you act if don’t exist.

Meanwhile, what has Europe done? Has Europe launched any similar project to disengage from America?

Of course not.

Europe continues its criminal partnership with its American cousins–a fact that you noticeably gloss over.

Hello everyone I just got home from a 5 day vacation from my hard spiritual work of trying to understand what is happening on this planet. I quickly found this article that explains a lot. It seems world war 3 is well under way but Russia and her considerable allies are for the most part keeping it a cold war and negotiating to keep the bloody human casualties to a minimum.
Putin has emerged as the front man or spokesman for a least half the world only because of geographical and historical reasons. The world is truly blessed that he happens to be a highly intelligent man. Over a hundred years of American hegemony and planetary destruction are coming to an end, for those like me it will be an ” exciting new world,” others may see it as the ” end of the world. ”

” Russian power is authoritative, rather than authoritarian ”

I do not speak russian but In the quote above I respectfully think the translators got it wrong it should read “Russian strength” as bullies have power and Russia is no bully. America is a bully and a bully is just a ” coward with power.” I live in Canada and Canada is the worst kind of coward that mouths off hiding behind the bully until the bully knocks someone down then runs out and kicks them when they’re down.
Remember: Strength = Creativity Power = Destruction

A wonderful analyses, though China & Germany may play larger roles than those noted.

Canada’s stance, very well explained by Loud John above, may expand once Canada realizes that Putin can not slap back since his goal is peace. The bully’s lackie could become very brave once he’s convinced that their intended victim wouldn’t fight back.

It would be a shame if the conflict slips past Ukrainian borders because of the false bravado of such a minor player.

One thing about US elites, political and financial. It’s not so much that they’re stupid, or even “shortsighted” in the sense we typically think. Or rather, they are shortsighted, but it’s a strategy in itself, a deliberate habit of thought.
US and world financial elites discount the future. Their basic strategy is one of successive short-term profits. If you suck the most money out now, it doesn’t matter if that causes some kind of problem because you then tomorrow have more money to use to suck the most money out of some other situation tomorrow. Each short-term profit gives you more capital (and/or political clout) with which to leverage the next short-term profit opportunity. Long term plans are seen as pointless; they may never come to fruition and so the smart money is in profits now. Because money is mobile, it doesn’t matter if the short term profit is made by looting rather than building; you can always bail out of whatever you ruined and go make a profit somewhere else. This pattern of thought is very much literalized in corporate circles; planning increasingly discounts future earnings.

Now while this works for an individual selfish investor with enough clout to make it work, it does not work as world governance. There’s only one world, you can’t just invest somewhere else once you’ve ruined it. What makes these elites seem stupid is that their habits of thought stick to them, so they bring an approach to international dealings which is really only suited to smaller scale banditry. Inevitably, they will fail when they’ve fouled enough nests, the question is how many and how bad before it all catches up.

The US can not afford to pay for Ukraine and nor can the EU. Ukraine will be a frozen conflict for many years to come. It had the potential to be the bridge/intermediary between Eats and West.

There are those in Ukraine 5% that want nothing but war and division with Russia. They do not act in Ukraine’s best long term interest. They want to destroy any and all connections with Russia. They are the real Fascists from Lwow region.

The downing of MH17 is a key element to the direction of this conflict. If it is found that the Ukrainian radical forces were engaged and responsible for the MH17 disaster (A false flag Operation) then the tide and fortunes will change. The autopsy reports of the MH17 pilots has been completed and they should be released without delay.

Ukrainian radical forces will continue to argue that its economic situation is due the conflict, they will try and avoid the reality that the sanctions imposed on Russia are also effecting Ukraine.

It will take one or two more electoral cycles before Ukraine’s participation rate is restored and the people of Ukraine regain confidence in the governing structure. Had the 2014 Feb 21 agreement been upheld and the radicals not allowed to hijack the political process Ukraine and the Region would have been much better off. Ukraine would have had a new president. there would have been a representative parliament and the country would have remained in relative peace. Sadly that was not to be. Ukraine still has not reformed its Constitution. It still is a lawless state and remains bitterly divided. Frozen in conflict

People will not forget nor embrace.

The best solution is partition. Galacia The boarders of Ukraine should be changed to pre 1939, LWOW region should be allowed to stand alone or rejoin Poland. The people should be given the right to determine which state they will belong.

NATO should be disbanded. Europe should form its own Security organization that involves Russia without Canada and the United States.

Do not hold your breath Ukraine has a long long path to travel. God help us all if this war or conflict spreads or goes underground.

Have you read it? …
What does Putin want ? Without reading the article, I do answer: The sama/similar I want.
“A bird’s eye view over the Vineyard” it the methaforic answer to all who do understand the Process of Being on Mother Earth.
I would change that metaphor with this words:
A Warrior (Valiant) in the Vineyard, to then when changes happen, “An Aval on the Vineyard”
Dear Natalia. With this words I have described my goal being on this Net.
Changes must happen, Worth lies in Work, Work/hu+woman’s power is WORTH, Means are only Capital/Base, Money is only an exchange mean.
Who is fighting for that? You, me, others, Putin to. THIS IS WHAT VLADIMIR WANTS.
As a Strong State Leader, he has the personal power and will, to become an AVAL/Warrant all the changes to happen and to remain as a rule of future relations between hu+woman on Mother Earth.
If not so…”He will come, judge and punish…and His kingdom will never end”….So they wrote in their religious/teaching narratives.
Good luck Natalia.
Chat Conversation End

There is a fundamental misunderstanding in this analysis. It is not Russia but China that is an existential threat to US hegemony. However, the US needs to defeat Russia before it can confront China. The Brzezinski Doctrine requires US winning the Great Game, i.e. control of Central Asia. This can only be accomplished by dismembering Russia and incorporating it into the US Empire. This in turn will lead to the former Russian/Soviet CA territories falling within Washington’s orbit. This combined with Obama’s (read here the Neocon/Neolib condominium’s) Asian Pivot. Would isolate, contain and undercut China’s rise and increase the possibility of of “democratic” solution to the China problem. The US is hard at work trying to accomplish that by 1) fomenting separatist movements in China’s periphery (Xinjiang, Tibet, HK, Taiwan), 2) promoting bourgeois liberal political reforms via destabilizing “color revolutions” both in HK and the mainland, and 3) attempting to forge an economic and political alliance of East, Southeast and South Asian states in opposition to China’s raise as a regional power aimed via the TTP economic treaty and increased military cooperation by inflaming localized conflicts (stoking historical conflicts between China and India, Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan). A key link in this protracted struggle is securing the US position along China’s northern front.

The problem is China is totally outflanking these US efforts with a variety of initiatives the the US and EU cannot begin to match. These include the strategic alliance of Russia and China, the New Silk Road which will integrate Central Asia into a Eurasian economic zone, and the AIIB among many others. China is now not only the world’s factory, but the world’s largest trading partner and quickly becoming the world’s financier. The Us has no way to counter this inexorable trend and is floundering , not knowing how to respond to China’s relentless advances in all spheres, economic, social and political. As a result Western propagandist (aka political analysts and pundits) constantly attempt to demonize China and portray in as on the brink of collapse) while politicians seek every which way but facing reality to thwart China’s rise. Like Russia, China does not want to defeat the US, just tame it so that the US takes its rightful place in the emerging multi-polar world. The US needs to be weaned away from its hegemonic ways and accept its role as one amongst equals not as somehow “exceptional” and indispensable.”

What we are actually witnessing are the death throes of US imperialism and the post WW2 geo-political world order. It is China not Russia leading the way, although Russia is on the front lines with China standing behind pulling the strings.

The key for the success of the Chinese strategy however is to break the US strangle hold on Europe which means integrating the European economy with that of China. The New Silk Road and the AIIB are the first salvos in that offensive.

There are irreconcilable differences between the Western Ukrainians and those of the East. A divorce is inevitable. However, the two sides cannot reconcile themselves to this separation until the line, that will separate them, has been discovered. The discovery process will be long and painful.

It is not at all clear why the author thinks wars are about to break out in the EU, whilst the EU has serious economic problems one of its big successes has been the curbing of hostility between European states.

Why should many of the players know what this author knows? They seemed trapped by policy inertias. Fighting for the world’s resources is silly. They will enter international commodity markets regardless. If the economic basket case of Russia hasn’t collapsed, neither will the US or the EU–or China. Nazis running Ukraine? Call lthem that prior to smashing them. It doesn’t matter if they are or not relative to the properly described geo-political reality. Russia cannot be a major hegemonic power except when it is engaged with the actual major hegemonic power, the US (plus the EU). It’s too small economically and weak. When the US stops pushing Russia, it’s Russia and its oil-based economy that will implode or drastically shrink. Above all forget the finiteness of resources, all such finiteness practically realized is from the human brain. Scarcity and want and freedom provide abundance. Etc.

Great article!!! Very clear and precise on the situation and makes great sense! The US is crazy with war fever and wants to rule the world! Why cant we all get along? Human nature is as it is but God gave us the power to change with His grace to change and get along. Our leaders are sociopaths it seems! I believe Gods plan is good and perfect and will be done—-wish we could be of more help to Him to bring it about! Arent we tired of playing god? Are we so blind as not to see that we are being stupid in our actions? Guess not! Thanks! Tim

Oh my gosh, this is a great article that I can almost totally subscribe.

I just don’t think that EU-rope is as passive as it sounds. Of course, Brussels is nothing but a vassal to Washington and so are most capitals of EU-ropean states, but the people are freaking angry. Here in Germany – which I consider to be the decisive state that could end the Empire – I only know one person who considers Russia a threat and Merkel doing a great job. And he thinks the Greeks have totally brought it upon themselves and that I am twisted conspiracy theorist.

My point being, if we had a direct democracy, EU-rope (except maybe for the paranoid imbecile states in East EU-rope) would be with Russia and not the US.

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